The National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), is accepting applications under PAR-25-445, NIDCD Clinical Research Center Grant (P50 Clinical Trial Optional).
The P50 mechanism supports integrated, multidisciplinary clinical research centers addressing critical questions affecting people with deafness or disorders of human communication in hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech, and language. A responsive center must be organized around a clear unifying clinical research theme rather than a collection of independent projects.
Deadline: October 2, 2026 at 5:00 PM local time of the applicant organization. NIDCD issued NOT-DC-26-004 on March 31, 2026, changing the NOFO expiration date to October 3, 2026 and making October 2, 2026 the final application due date under this announcement.
Funding: New applications may request up to $1,500,000 per year in direct costs, exclusive of consortium facilities and administrative costs. Renewal applications may request no more than 10% above the direct-cost budget of the final year of the existing award or $2,000,000, whichever is less. The maximum project period is five years. Cost sharing is not required. The number of awards depends on NIH appropriations and the availability of sufficiently meritorious applications.
Required center structure: A responsive P50 must include three to four research projects addressing a well-defined unifying theme, one required Administrative Core, one or two optional Scientific Cores, a multidisciplinary research team, and an external advisory committee. The research must have a clinical focus, ordinarily involving individuals with sensory or communication disorders or data or tissues from affected individuals. At most one project may be non-human research. Clinical trials are optional, and when included under this mechanism they must fit the NOFO’s low-risk clinical-trial or Basic Science Experimental Studies involving Humans parameters.
Eligibility: Eligible domestic organization classes include public and private institutions of higher education, qualifying nonprofits, small businesses and other for-profit organizations, state, county, city, township and special-district governments, Tribal governments and organizations, eligible federal agencies, U.S. territories or possessions, independent school districts, public or Indian housing authorities, faith-based and community-based organizations, and regional organizations. Foreign organizations and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are not eligible. Under the current NIH rule, applications involving foreign subawards or subcontracts are noncompliant under this NOFO.
Submission: Applications must follow NIH Multi-Project (M) instructions and be submitted electronically through Grants.gov using ASSIST or an institutional system-to-system solution, with status tracked in eRA Commons. Required SAM, UEI, eRA Commons, and Grants.gov registrations must be active before submission. NIDCD strongly encourages prospective applicants to consult program staff early because incomplete or nonresponsive center applications will not be reviewed.
Atlas fit: The opportunity is highly relevant to academic health systems, university clinical departments, specialty hearing and communication research centers, hospitals, and established multidisciplinary research organizations. Although for-profit organizations are structurally eligible, structural eligibility alone does not establish a credible standalone Dr. Miltie prime path. A viable P50 requires an established integrated clinical research center with three to four qualifying projects, experienced scientific and administrative leadership, clinical populations or data, required cores, multidisciplinary investigators, an external advisory committee, institutional grants infrastructure, and the required federal registrations. Preferred posture: Partner-Led / Specialized Clinical Research Center. Route organization-specific evaluation and outreach to the applicable state healthcare and academic-research pathways.