Active Atlas Opportunity Score 85/100
NC-NCBIOTECH-IIG-FY27 | North Carolina | North Carolina Biotechnology Center | Research & Technology | Life Sciences | Shared Research Equipment
FY2027 Innovation Impact Grant (IIG)
The North Carolina Biotechnology Center is accepting FY2027 Innovation Impact Grant proposals to purchase state-of-the-art shared-use research equipment for core facilities at North Carolina academic or nonprofit research institutions. Priority is given to equipment that fills a meaningful gap in North Carolina’s life-sciences research infrastructure, serves a broad research community, supports larger institutional or regional initiatives, or strengthens faculty recruitment and retention.
Deadline: Wednesday, September 30, 2026 at noon. The controlling NCBiotech program page and FY27 guidelines publish the clock time but do not separately state a time zone, so Atlas does not infer one.
Funding: Up to $150,000 may be requested for equipment or instrumentation to be purchased and installed within 12 months of award. Requests should generally focus on high-cost research equipment, with a minimum total request of $30,000. Multiple pieces of equipment may be combined when they create a new core capability and the combined request meets the program threshold.
Eligibility: The principal investigator must be a permanent, full-time core facility director or faculty member at a North Carolina academic or nonprofit research institute and must have technical expertise directly related to the requested equipment. The requested equipment must be integrated into an existing core facility or used to establish a new core facility. R1 applicants must identify at least six major users; other North Carolina institutions must identify at least three.
Match / cost share: A mandatory institutional cash match applies. Duke University, North Carolina State University, UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC Charlotte and East Carolina University require a minimum 20% cash match of total equipment/project cost. Other eligible North Carolina institutions require a minimum 10% cash match. Match commitments must be documented in signed institutional support letters. Because this is a mandatory match program, Atlas will not advance any Dr. Miltie direct submission absent Marc’s approval; Dr. Miltie/QC Healthcare is not an eligible direct applicant in any event.
Allowable costs: In addition to the equipment itself, allowable requested costs may include minor renovation of core-facility space needed to accommodate the equipment and hardware/software necessary to operate it. Allowable matching items include cash cost-sharing of the purchase price, qualifying minor renovation, required hardware/software, and extended warranties or service contracts paid at purchase. Indirect/F&A costs, salaries, already-purchased equipment, already-initiated or completed renovations, and rental or lease-to-own equipment are not allowable. High-performance computing equipment is newly excluded in FY2027, and equipment primarily used for student education, workforce development, or billable clinical care is not eligible.
Submission method: The PI must register for the NCBiotech Funding Portal at least five days before the deadline and must submit through the PI’s own portal account. Email and hard-copy proposals are not accepted.
Required application package: Five separate PDF uploads are required: (1) signed Cover Sheet; (2) Proposal; (3) Budget Package, including the required NCBiotech Excel budget converted to PDF and price quotes for every requested piece of equipment; (4) Supporting Documentation; and (5) Suggested Reviewer Form. The proposal also requires a 50-word public-information summary, impact/objectives sections, detailed equipment justification, major-user research summaries, core-facility administration and access plan, long-term support plan, budget justification, project timeline, bibliography, current and pending grants, and required NCBiotech-format biosketches.
Supporting documentation: Required support materials include a signed impact/authorization letter from the institution’s senior research executive, signed documentation of the exact institutional match commitment, and a support letter from each major user. Long-term maintenance/repair support letters are required when institutional support is being committed. Applicants must also identify at least two independent suggested reviewers from academic or governmental organizations outside North Carolina who have appropriate technical expertise and no conflict of interest.
Amendment check: The current NCBiotech IIG page continues to list the FY27 Guidelines, Cover Sheet, Budget Form, Biosketch, Suggested Reviewer Form and Application Checklist and continues to show the September 30, 2026 noon deadline. Atlas did not identify a separately posted FY27 amendment, addendum or replacement deadline as of September 12, 2026.
Realistic eligible organizations: Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University are demonstrated IIG users and remain realistic applicant environments for equipment that satisfies the current rules and is not disqualified as similar to recently funded equipment. NCBiotech’s current past-awards database shows a June 2026 IIG award to Duke for an iconPCR instrument and a March 2026 IIG award to UNC-Chapel Hill for automated slide staining and coverslipping. Wake Forest University Health Sciences and other eligible North Carolina research institutions with qualifying core facilities are also plausible applicants, subject to project-specific eligibility and match confirmation.
N9+ Fit Score: 8/100. N9+ should not be forced into this opportunity. The program is designed for state-of-the-art shared research instrumentation and expressly excludes equipment primarily used for billable clinical care or student/workforce training. A narrow research-only use case might be technically conceivable within a qualifying core, but Atlas does not see a sufficiently strong or specific N9+ pathway to justify applicant outreach.
Direct-vendor review: Dr. Miltie / QC Healthcare is not an eligible direct applicant. No applicant outreach, Deal, WorkDrive pursuit folder, attachment package or vendor pursuit is being advanced from this record.
Controlling sources: North Carolina Biotechnology Center Innovation Impact Grant program page and the linked FY27 IIG Proposal Guidelines & Instructions.
Program contact: Michelle Collins, Director, Grant Process Operations, Science and Technology Development, michelle_collins@ncbiotech.org, (919) 549-8845.
Verified September 12, 2026.