Limited Competition: Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative Phase II (U54 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA RM 18 006

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA RM 18 006

The Limited Competition: Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative Phase II (U54, Clinical Trial Not Allowed) funding opportunity, RFA-RM-18-006, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement intended specifically for institutions that already hold active BUILD awards. BUILD is one of three connected efforts under the Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce Program, also called the Diversity Program Consortium (DPC). The other two parts of the consortium are the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) and the Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC). Together, these initiatives are designed to strengthen and diversify the biomedical research training and career pipeline, with BUILD focusing on campus-based, multi-level change.

This Phase II opportunity is structured to let existing BUILD sites continue and deepen the work they began in Phase I, with an emphasis on both implementation and evaluation. NIH is looking for sites to carry forward a multi-pronged set of interventions that operate at several levels at once: student-facing programming (such as research training experiences and structured academic supports), faculty development (including mentoring capacity and teaching or research enrichment), and broader institutional changes that make biomedical research training environments more inclusive and effective. A central expectation is that applicants will not only run these interventions but also measure what is working, for whom, and under what conditions, so the initiative contributes usable evidence about building a diverse biomedical workforce.

A major theme of this FOA is sustainability. Applicants are expected to lay out a clear plan for transitioning BUILD activities into durable, long-term models that can persist after the award period. In practice, this means NIH is not simply funding short-term programming; it is pushing institutions to embed successful approaches into standard operations, policies, infrastructure, and culture in ways that can be maintained with institutional commitment and diversified funding streams. The sustainability requirement also signals that Phase II should reflect learning from Phase I, including refinements to program design, stronger integration across departments or schools, and clearer pathways for maintaining key components over time.

In addition to sustaining local impact, Phase II applicants are expected to create something that travels. Specifically, each site is expected to develop an effective training, mentoring, or research capacity-building intervention that can be disseminated to other institutions. The goal is broader national impact beyond the original BUILD campuses, meaning the work should produce models, toolkits, curricula, mentoring structures, implementation guides, or other transferable products that other colleges and universities can adopt or adapt. This dissemination focus aligns with NIH interest in scalable practices and reduces the risk that promising approaches remain isolated to a small number of grantee sites.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary funding opportunity using a cooperative agreement mechanism (U54). The cooperative agreement format generally indicates substantial NIH involvement during the project period compared to a standard research project grant, often through active programmatic collaboration, shared expectations across sites, and coordination with consortium-wide evaluation and learning activities. The FOA is designated "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," which means proposed activities must not meet NIH’s definition of a clinical trial; the work should remain in the realm of training, mentoring, education research, program evaluation, and capacity building rather than interventional clinical research.

Eligibility is limited. The FOA invites applications from the Program Directors/Principal Investigators of current BUILD awards, making this a true limited competition rather than an open call. The listed eligible applicant type includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, consistent with the BUILD program’s focus on institutional infrastructure and workforce development. The opportunity explicitly excludes non-U.S. entities and foreign components: non-domestic (non-U.S.) institutions cannot apply, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement are not permitted. In short, the work and participating components must be entirely domestic within the United States.

Key logistics included in the source data are that the administering agency is NIH, the activity category is Health, and the CFDA number is 93.310. The FOA was created on 2018-04-03, with an original closing date of 2018-06-15. While the provided listing does not specify an award ceiling or the number of expected awards, the intent is clearly continuation and expansion of existing BUILD sites rather than starting new sites, with resources aimed at strengthening proven interventions, improving evaluation, ensuring sustainability, and producing disseminable models that can raise the national impact of the Diversity Program Consortium.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Limited Competition: Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) Initiative Phase II (U54 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.310.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2018-04-03.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-06-15. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for RFA RM 18 006

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