BRAIN Initiative: Secondary Analysis and Archiving of BRAIN Initiative Data (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA MH 21 130

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA MH 21 130

The funding opportunity "BRAIN Initiative: Secondary Analysis and Archiving of BRAIN Initiative Data (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" (Funding Opportunity Number: RFA-MH-21-130) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) discretionary grant that supports research using existing neuroscience data to advance the goals of the BRAIN Initiative, especially the goal of understanding brain circuits. This announcement is a reissue of an earlier solicitation (RFA-MH-20-120) and is focused on getting more value out of data that have already been collected, either by enabling new discoveries through secondary analysis and data mining or by improving the accessibility and long-term utility of valuable BRAIN-relevant datasets through archiving.

At its core, the program is designed for projects that do not need to generate new primary data to be impactful. Instead, it encourages applicants to use existing datasets to ask questions that could not realistically be answered within the limits of a single study, a single laboratory, or a single experimental technology. That includes proposing and testing new hypotheses that were outside the original aims of the data-generating studies, as well as revisiting existing datasets with newer analytical tools, computational approaches, or integrative methods that were not available or not applied at the time the data were first produced. In practical terms, the most competitive ideas are likely to be those that clearly show how the proposed analyses will reveal new insights about neural circuits or circuit function, rather than simply reproducing or lightly extending prior work.

The opportunity also explicitly invites applications focused on data preparation and submission to BRAIN Initiative data archives. That means a project can be built around curating, organizing, harmonizing, annotating, formatting, and documenting high-value datasets so they can be deposited into an appropriate BRAIN archive and be reusable by the broader community. This emphasis reflects a broader BRAIN and NIH priority: making sure that expensive, complex, and unique neuroscience datasets do not remain difficult to find or difficult to reuse due to inconsistent metadata, incomplete documentation, or nonstandard formats. A strong archiving-focused application would typically explain why the data are particularly valuable for circuit-level understanding, what steps are needed to make the data interoperable and usable, and how the final archived product will meet archive requirements and serve future secondary analyses by others.

Methodologically, the FOA is open to a wide range of approaches as long as they are applied to existing data and are aimed at new scientific aims. It highlights innovative analyses, data mining, and novel combinations or integrations of datasets. This could include, for example, combining datasets across modalities (such as electrophysiology with imaging, or behavioral measurements with neural recordings), across cohorts or labs, or across experimental contexts to look for circuit principles that generalize. It can also include applying modern computational techniques, improved statistical frameworks, or newer signal processing and machine learning tools to extract information that was previously hidden, too noisy, or too complex to interpret. The unifying theme is that the proposed work should produce new knowledge or new community resources from data that already exist.

This is an R01 funding mechanism, and the FOA states "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," meaning the proposed project cannot include a clinical trial as defined by NIH. The program is therefore aimed at secondary research and data resource activities rather than prospective interventional studies. The award ceiling listed for this opportunity is $300,000, and it is administered by NIH under multiple CFDA numbers (93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867), reflecting the involvement of multiple NIH components and mission areas relevant to neuroscience and mental health.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of organizations. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; other Native American tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (other than higher education institutions); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses. The FOA also calls out additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, AANAPISIs, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, U.S. territories or possessions, tribal governments that are not federally recognized, and non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations). This wide eligibility signals an intention to draw from diverse research and data-science communities, including organizations that may contribute specialized analytic expertise, unique datasets, or strong data stewardship capabilities.

Key administrative details from the source include an original closing date of 2021-10-07 and a creation date of 2021-03-10. While those dates indicate this specific posting was tied to a particular application cycle, the program description is still useful for understanding NIH priorities around BRAIN data reuse and archiving. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as support for high-impact work that either (1) extracts new circuit-level insights from existing BRAIN-relevant data through sophisticated secondary analysis, or (2) turns important but underutilized datasets into well-documented, archived resources that can fuel many future discoveries.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BRAIN Initiative: Secondary Analysis and Archiving of BRAIN Initiative Data (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2021-03-10.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2021-10-07. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $300,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA MH 21 130

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