DOD Chronic Pain Management, Investigator-Initiated Research Award | HT9425 23 CPMRP IIRA

Opportunity Information: Apply for HT9425 23 CPMRP IIRA

The DOD Chronic Pain Management, Investigator-Initiated Research Award (IIRA) is a Department of Defense funding opportunity administered by the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) to support investigator-driven research aimed at meaningfully improving chronic pain care. The core purpose of this mechanism is to back studies with strong potential to produce significant advances in research knowledge, clinical care, and/or quality of life outcomes that align with the program's FY23 IIRA Focus Areas. It is positioned as a science and technology research and development award (CFDA 12.420) and is intended to encourage impactful, well-justified projects rather than incremental work.

The program is designed to be broad in scientific approach, allowing basic, translational, and clinically oriented research. Applicants may propose studies using animal models, human anatomical substances, or human subjects, and the opportunity also allows correlative work linked to an already ongoing clinical trial. A key boundary is that this award cannot be used to conduct a clinical trial itself; in other words, it supports research that can inform or leverage clinical trials, but it does not fund the execution of a new clinical trial under this mechanism. The solicitation also emphasizes the value of multidisciplinary teams and innovative approaches, signaling that proposals bringing together multiple fields (for example, pain medicine, rehabilitation, neuroscience, psychology, biomedical engineering, or data science) and proposing creative methods are particularly welcome.

There is a clear restriction related to opioids: projects that aim to develop new or novel opioid-based therapeutic interventions are considered outside the intent of the award and will not be funded. At the same time, the program does permit opioid-related research when the goal is to understand, improve, or reduce opioid utilization in chronic pain management within the reality of current prescribing practices. That means studies focused on safer pain management strategies, prescribing optimization, risk reduction, tapering support, non-opioid alternatives, or systems-level interventions to reduce reliance on opioids can be considered appropriate, as long as they fit within the broader focus areas and do not center on creating new opioid therapies.

From an administrative standpoint, the opportunity number is HT9425 23 CPMRP IIRA. The funding instrument types listed are grants and cooperative agreements, which generally indicates that some awards may involve more direct government involvement or coordination depending on the project needs and structure. Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning the competition is open to a wide range of applicant entity types, subject to any additional eligibility details that may appear in the full announcement. The posting date is July 3, 2023, with an original closing date of November 9, 2023. The expected number of awards is six. The award ceiling is listed as 0, which typically indicates that a specific maximum dollar cap is not provided in the summarized metadata and applicants should rely on the full funding announcement for budget expectations and constraints.

Overall, this award supports investigator-initiated chronic pain research that can realistically move the field forward, encourages cross-disciplinary and innovative work, allows studies involving humans and human materials (and correlative studies tied to existing trials), prohibits using the mechanism to run clinical trials, and draws a firm line against developing new opioid-based treatments while still allowing research aimed at reducing opioid use and improving prescribing-related outcomes.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DOD Chronic Pain Management, Investigator-Initiated Research Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jul 03, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 09, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for HT9425 23 CPMRP IIRA

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: