The following opportunities have been flagged for the conduct of research in this space, as well as for training and mentorship. In addition, there are exciting new opportunities to support advocacy and outreach that aims to translate knowledge to public policy reforms, in effect, promoting the uptake and sustainability of evidence-based practices, interventions, and policies.
This webpage will be updated as new announcements surface. If you’re aware of a new opportunity that has not been included, please contact FRONTIER’s director (dfishbein@unc.edu) so it can be added.

- Translational Research Grants and Awards
- Translational Research Training
- Science Outreach and Advocacy Training
Research opportunities from both federal and foundation sources for cross-fertilization between basic scientists and preventive intervention researchers. In addition, opportunities to apply for prestigious awards in relevant line of research are included.
Translational Research Grants
Dyadic Interpersonal Processes and Biopsychosocial Outcomes (R01 – Basic Experimental Studies with Humans)
National Institutes of Health/DHHS
This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) invites basic and/or methodological research projects that illuminate and/or measure independent and interdependent health-related effects within dyads across relationships and settings. For the purpose of this FOA, a dyad is a unit of two individuals whose interactions and influences on one another are nested within larger social contexts and networks.For the purpose of this FOA, independent effects are those effects that affect each member of the dyad individually (i.e., by nature of being part of the dyad), whereas interdependent effects are those that affect one member of the dyad contingent upon the other member of the dyad.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-280.html
Evidence for Action
The Robert Wood Johnson’s Evidence for Action program is currently seeking proposals to evaluate specific policies, programs, and practices that have the potential to contribute to dismantling and counteracting the harms of structural and systemic racism and improving health, well-being, and equity outcomes. Knowing that some approaches to disrupting racism are in early stages of development; other types of research that can advance racial equity will be considered.
Initiation of a Mental Health Family Navigator Model to Promote Early Access, Engagement and Coordination of Needed Mental Health Services for Children and Adolescents (R01 Clinical Trial Required)
National Institutes of Health
The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to encourage research applications to develop and test the effectiveness and implementation of family navigator models designed to promote early access, engagement, coordination and optimization of mental health treatment and services for children and adolescents who are experiencing early symptoms of mental health problems. For the purposes of this FOA, NIMH defines a family navigator model as a health care professional or paraprofessional whose role is to deploy a set of strategies designed to rapidly engage youth and families in needed treatment and services, work closely with the family and other involved treatment and service providers to optimize care, and through the use of technology – to monitor the trajectory of mental health symptoms and outcomes over time.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-291.html
Innovation to Impact
Innovations that could help substance users are not reaching the public fast enough. To address these challenges, Innovation to Impact at Yale was developed as a national program to provide education, mentorship, and seed funding to innovators. The overriding goal is to advance ideas to impact the world.
https://www.innovationtoimpact.com/
Joint NINDS/NIMH Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant (R21 Clinical Trial Optional)
National Institutes of Health/DHHS
The Joint NINDS/NIMH Exploratory Neuroscience Research Grant program supports exploratory and innovative research projects, which fall within the missions of the NINDS and NIMH. Awards will provide support for the early and conceptual stages of projects. These studies often assess the feasibility of a novel avenue of investigation and involve considerable risk, but have the potential to bring about breakthroughs in the understanding of important areas of neuroscience, or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methodologies, or models, of high value to the neuroscience community. While this funding opportunity also accepts clinical trials, only applications proposing “mechanistic clinical trials or studies” (studying pathophysiology or mechanism of action of an intervention, but not safety or efficacy) or basic experimental studies with humans (BESH) will be supported.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-21-219.html
NIMH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant
National Institute of Mental Health/NIH/DHHS
The NIMH Exploratory/Developmental Grant program supports exploratory and high-risk research projects that fall within the NIMH mission by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of these projects. These studies may involve considerable risk but may lead to a breakthrough or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methods, measures, models, or strategies, or to the generation of pilot or feasibility data.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-21-235.html
Research, Development and Analysis Fund
Nuffield Foundation
The Nuffield Foundation provides grants for research, development, and analysis projects that seek to improve the design and operation of social policy across three broad domains of Education, Welfare and Justice. The Nuffield Foundation’s priorities are research, development, and analysis projects that:
- Identify and explain the social and economic determinants of opportunity and risk across the life span, focusing in particular on early childhood adversity, transitions from adolescence to young adulthood, and social and economic well-being in adulthood and later life.
- Improve well-being for society as a whole, while ameliorating negative distributional outcomes and the greatest harms.
- Support the development of workable evidence-based solutions for policy and practice over the medium term.
https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/funding/research-development-and-analysis-fund
Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Admin Supp – Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
National Institutes of Health
Administrative supplements to enhance the diversity of the research workforce by recruiting and supporting students, post doctorates, and eligible investigators from diverse backgrounds, including those from groups that have been shown to be underrepresented in health-related research. This supplement opportunity is also available to PD(s)/PI(s) of research grants who are or become disabled and need additional support to accommodate their disability in order to continue to work on the research project. Administrative supplements must support work within the scope of the original project.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-20-222.html
Research Awards
Brain Research Foundation 2022 Scientific Innovations Award
Brain Research Foundation
Senior Faculty Member: The nominated candidate must be a full-time associate professor or full professor at an invited US academic institution, working in the area of studies of brain function in health and disease.
https://thebrf.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/2022-SIA-Guidelines.pdf
Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Parent F31-Diversity)
National Institutes of Health
The purpose of this Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research award is to enhance the diversity of the health-related research workforce by supporting the research training of predoctoral students from diverse backgrounds including those from groups that are underrepresented in the biomedical, behavioral, or clinical research workforce. Through this award program, promising predoctoral students will obtain individualized, mentored research training from outstanding faculty sponsors while conducting well-defined research projects in scientific health-related fields relevant to the missions of the participating NIH Institutes and Centers.
https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=328017
The Searle Scholars Program
The Searle Scholars Program Award information grants are set at $300,000 for a three-year period with $100,000 payable in the first year and equal sums payable in the second and third years and are subject to the receipt of acceptable progress reports. Generally, fifteen new awards are granted annually and are activated on July 1 of the year of the competition.
Searle Scholars Website: https://www.searlescholars.net/competition/
Grants from federal and foundation sources that provide training in transdisciplinary and translational collaborations and research conceptual frameworks and methodologies that prepare participants to conduct research in relevant areas of “neuro-prevention”.
Brain & Behavior Research Foundation
The mission of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation is committed to alleviating the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding grants that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research.
https://www.bbrfoundation.org/
National Institute of Neurological Disorder and Stroke
The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke is an Institute within the National Institutes of Health that aims to seek fundamental knowledge about the brain and nervous system and to use that knowledge to reduce the burden of neurological disease. NINDS Contributions to Approved Therapies: NINDS invests in and conducts research across the spectrum of neuroscience and neurology research, from basic studies on fundamental biological mechanisms, to clinical trials to test new treatments in patients.
https://www.ninds.nih.gov/Funding/About-Funding/Grant-Mechanisms
NIH Bridges to the Doctorate Research Training Program (T32)
The goal of the Bridges to the Doctorate Research Training Program is to develop a diverse pool of scientists earning a Ph.D. who have the skills to successfully transition into careers in the biomedical research workforce. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) provides support to eligible, domestic institutions to develop and implement effective, evidence-informed approaches to biomedical training and mentoring that will keep pace with the rapid evolution of the research enterprise. NIGMS expects that the proposed research training programs will incorporate didactic, research, mentoring, and career development elements to prepare trainees for careers that will have a significant impact on the health-related research needs of the Nation.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-198.html
Summer Research Education Experience Program, National Institutes of Health
The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The overarching goal of this R25 program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on Research Experiences for high school students, undergraduate students, and/or science teachers during the summer academic break.
https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-21-168.html
Yale’s Innovation to Impact initiative: Translate your innovations from the lab to the world.
https://www.innovationtoimpact.com/
Funding for both training in science advocacy and dissemination, as well as grants to engage in these activities are included here.
The Neuroscientists Guide to Advocacy – Neuronline
Collection of advocacy training videos, SfN’s Advocacy Engagement Manager shares helpful information for new and experienced advocates. This series covers background on what advocacy is and why it’s important to your work, along with keys to effectively encourage lawmakers to support basic and biomedical research.
https://neuronline.sfn.org/collection/the-neuroscientists-guide-to-advocacy
Training Researchers to Inform Policy – WTGF
Scholars Strategy Network. Training Researchers to Inform Policy
A One Day Workshop, that gives scholars a hands-on introduction to effective principles of policy engagement. A Unique Training, focused on one thing: giving researchers evidence-based, practical steps they take to ensure that research findings and researchers’ perspectives inform policy.
Evidence-Based Practices, on research about when policymakers use research — and when they don’t.
https://scholars.org/policyworkshop
National Human Trafficking Training and Technical Assistance Center
NHTTAC is sharing this event announcement on behalf of SAMHSA’S GAINS Center:
SAMHSA’s GAINS Center is now soliciting applications from experienced trainers (individuals) who are interested in developing their capacity to provide trauma-informed training in their local agencies/communities via the How Being Trauma-Informed Improves Criminal Justice System Responses curriculum. Selected applicants will learn to facilitate the training via a virtual Train-the-Trainer (TTT) event and subsequently deliver the training program in their local communities. While not a requirement to apply to this opportunity, this year’s selection process will place special emphasis on applicants who provide training to drug courts and/or reentry programs. Preference will be given to applicants that serve marginalized and/or underserved populations.
The GAINS Center is offering this event at no cost to experienced trainers who successfully complete the application process. All applicants must have the technological capacity to engage in the TTT, including having access to an individual PC/workstation that has internet access and the ability to download and launch virtual meeting software. If this TTT event for individuals is of interest to you, please review the solicitation and submit your completed application form to the GAINS Center no later than February 18, 2022. There will be at least two virtual TTT events scheduled, with the possibility of a third, for April 25-26, May 19-20, and/or June 7&9. Please note the dates before applying and include your availability in the application as directed. If selected, you will be expected to attend one of these full 2-day TTT events virtually.