The National Institutes of Health, led by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) with participation from NIA, NIAAA, and NIDCR, is accepting applications under RFA-AR-27-002, HEAL INITIATIVE: INTERACT Data Coordination and Integration Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed).
The award will establish a Data Coordination and Integration Center for the NIH HEAL INTERACT program. The Center will coordinate, manage, curate, harmonize, integrate, analyze, and disseminate complex pain-associated datasets generated across INTERACT and progressively related musculoskeletal HEAL and NIH whole-person pain programs. It must support interoperability, data standards, integration across biologic, molecular, imaging, biomechanical, psychosocial and other data types, analytic tools, secondary analysis, web-accessible information systems, and data sharing through the NIH HEAL Data Ecosystem.
Deadline: Applications are due October 1, 2026 at 5:00 PM local time of the applicant organization. The NOFO opened September 1, 2026, does not accept late applications, and expires October 2, 2026. The earliest anticipated project start is July 2027.
Funding: NIH intends to commit up to $4 million to fund one award beginning in FY 2027. Application budgets are not formally capped but must reflect the actual needs of the proposed project. The maximum project period is five years. Cost sharing is not required.
Eligibility: Broad domestic organizational eligibility includes public and private institutions of higher education, qualifying nonprofits, small businesses and other for-profit organizations, state and local governments, Tribal governments and organizations, eligible federal agencies, U.S. territories or possessions, independent school districts, public housing authorities, faith-based and community-based organizations, and regional organizations. Foreign organizations, non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations, and foreign components are not eligible under this NOFO. Applicant organizations and PDs/PIs must maintain required NIH registrations, including SAM, Grants.gov, eRA Commons, and ORCID as applicable.
Program requirements: This is a cooperative agreement with substantial NIH programmatic involvement. The funded Center must provide scientific and administrative leadership for consortium data coordination; implement data and metadata standards; oversee curation, harmonization, interoperability, and HEAL data-sharing compliance; support cross-program integration and secondary analyses; develop or provide analytic tools; facilitate community access and reuse; and participate in the INTERACT Steering Committee and related consortium activities. Clinical trials are not allowed under this U24, although non-trial human-subjects activities may be proposed when appropriate.
Submission: Applications follow NIH Research (R) instructions and are submitted electronically through ASSIST, Grants.gov Workspace, or an institutional system-to-system solution. All registrations must be active before submission, and applicants must follow the NOFO-specific application content and page-limit requirements in addition to the NIH Application Guide.
Atlas fit: This is a high-value biomedical data infrastructure, pain research, musculoskeletal health, research informatics, and multi-institutional coordination opportunity. Although for-profit organizations are structurally eligible and no match is required, a credible direct Dr. Miltie prime pursuit would require demonstrated large-scale NIH-grade data-coordination infrastructure, experienced biomedical informatics and pain-research leadership, multi-modal data standards and interoperability expertise, secure data systems, consortium governance capability, HEAL Data Ecosystem integration, and the institutional research environment necessary to lead a national U24 center. Preferred posture: Partner-Led / HEAL Biomedical Data Coordination Center. Route organization-specific applicant evaluation and outreach to qualified academic health centers, research institutes, biomedical informatics centers, health-data organizations, and other established consortium-capable applicants.