Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Digital Curation for Biomedical Big Data (U01) | RFA LM 17 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA LM 17 001

The Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Digital Curation for Biomedical Big Data (U01) opportunity, issued by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supports projects that make biomedical data easier to understand, reuse, and manage by improving digital curation. In practical terms, the funding is aimed at building, refining, and putting into real-world use tools, workflows, and methods that help researchers and data stewards more efficiently characterize and describe biomedical research data. The focus is on the curation steps that turn raw or poorly documented datasets into well-described, discoverable, and interoperable resources, including better metadata creation, standardization, annotation, and related curation processes that reduce manual burden and improve quality and consistency.

This program is part of NIH's BD2K initiative and uses a cooperative agreement mechanism (U01), which typically means NIH expects to have substantial scientific or programmatic involvement during the project period compared with a standard grant. Applicants should read that as a sign that the work is expected to align closely with program goals and may involve coordination, milestone-based progress, or active collaboration with NIH staff or other funded teams to ensure the resulting curation solutions are broadly useful to the biomedical research community.

The formal opportunity information includes Funding Opportunity Number RFA-LM-17-001, categorized as discretionary funding, with an activity category spanning education and health-related areas. The original closing date listed for applications was December 15, 2016. The award ceiling is listed as $350,000, indicating the maximum award amount anticipated per project under this announcement (as presented in the source data). The opportunity references multiple CFDA numbers (now commonly tracked under Assistance Listing numbers), reflecting that the announcement can be supported through several NIH funding lines tied to different institutes, centers, or program authorities.

A wide range of organizations are eligible to apply. 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; tribal organizations that are not federally recognized; public housing authorities and Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (as long as they are not institutions of higher education in those categories); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and small businesses. The announcement also explicitly highlights additional eligible applicant types such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISI), Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), eligible federal agencies, faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions. This broad eligibility reflects NIH's interest in encouraging participation from many sectors that can contribute to scalable, practical improvements in biomedical data curation.

Foreign eligibility is restricted. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply directly. However, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are eligible, meaning a U.S.-based applicant can include certain international components under the U.S. organization. At the same time, foreign components as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement are not allowed under this FOA, which effectively limits the extent to which foreign institutions can be formally included as project components.

Overall, this FOA targets the persistent bottlenecks in biomedical big data stewardship: the time, cost, and inconsistency involved in curating datasets so they can be found, trusted, combined, and reused. Competitive projects under this program would be expected to produce concrete curation improvements, such as software tools, automated or semi-automated metadata extraction and normalization, curator-assist systems, improved annotation pipelines, or implementable curation frameworks that measurably increase speed and/or quality. The emphasis on development, improvement, and implementation signals that the goal is not just conceptual guidance, but usable solutions that can be adopted by the biomedical research ecosystem.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, environment, food and nutrition, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Enhancing the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Digital Curation for Biomedical Big Data (U01)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.113, 93.121, 93.172, 93.173, 93.213, 93.233, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.310, 93.313, 93.350, 93.351, 93.393, 93.394, 93.395, 93.396, 93.399, 93.837, 93.838, 93.839, 93.840, 93.846, 93.847, 93.853, 93.855, 93.856, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867, 93.879.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-08-24.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2016-12-15. (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 $350,000.00 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.

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