Center Grants (P20/P30/P50)
Introduction to Center Grants Supported by KUH
Complex biomedical science often requires the expertise of collaborating investigators working together as an investigative team. Collaborative research can be supported by several different types of grant mechanisms:
- R01 with a Principal Investigator and one or more key personnel or collaborators;
- Multi-PI R01 with multiple Principal Investigators collaborating and sharing credit and responsibility;
- Program Project Grant (P01) designed to support a broadly based interrelated research program that has a unifying central theme; or
- Resource-Related Research Project Grant (R24) designed to provide flexible support for an interdisciplinary research team focused on answering a single critically important research question.
Collaborative research can also take the form of a research Center (P20/P30/P50) supporting a focused set of core activities.
KUH Research Centers enhance and extend the effectiveness of research related to kidney, urologic and hematologic diseases and their complications by encouraging collaboration among investigators from relevant disciplines. The goals are to bring together basic science and clinical investigators to enrich research and to generate investigative resources that can be made available to the broader research community in that area of science.
P20, P30 and P50 research center grants are awarded to institutions to develop and support long-term multidisciplinary programs. They also support the development of research resources, aim to integrate basic research with applied research and transfer activities, and promote research in areas of clinical applications with an emphasis on intervention, including prototype development and refinement of products, techniques, processes, methods, and practices.
KUH Guidelines for P20, P30 and P50 Applicants
Summary of KUH Requirements and Deadlines
- In evaluating applications, KUH prioritizes the potential of applicant centers to become national resources in their areas of science, assisting the larger community of investigators.
- For most Research Centers programs funded by KUH, requests for applications are issued approximately every five years.
- KUH supports P30 grants focusing on basic hematology research, including pilot and feasibility projects.
- KUH supports P50 grants, and occasionally P20 grants, in urology research.
- KUH supports P30 grants (O’Brien Kidney Centers and Polycystic Kidney Disease Centers) and P50 grants (Pediatric Nephrology Centers of Excellence) for kidney research.
- Please review requests for applications carefully, as funding mechanisms for longstanding KUH Research Centers programs do change. For example, the Polycystic Kidney Disease Research and Translation Core Centers program recently shifted to the P30 mechanism, after operating for a number of years via the P50 mechanism.
Examples: Successful P20, P30 and P50 Applications to KUH
- A Center helps investigators isolate, characterize, and manipulate hematopoietic stem cells. Their Large-Scale Cell Processing facility overcomes a key research obstacle for many investigators in this field: isolating cells from large volumes of blood and marrow. The Center also maintains a patient specimen repository and key databases. Innovative cost-sharing – a small fee for the use of Center facilities – funds additional pilot projects.
- Another Center has gathered a multidisciplinary team of scientists – computer engineers, physicians, cell biologists, molecular biologists, and experts in microscopy – to assist investigators using their resources. The facility gives kidney researchers access to advanced imaging technologies. Resources include live animal surgery facilities, expensive microscopes, and other technology not otherwise readily available to every investigator in the field. Center-affiliated scientists offer workshops and other training opportunities to other researchers to help them develop new approaches, applications or software to improve kidney imaging.
NIDDK Information for Applicants
An overview of NIDDK centers P20, P30 and P50 program funding, including center locations and descriptions, is available here: http://www2.niddk.nih.gov/Research/Centers.
The recent request for P30 applications in hematology, dated January 2010, can be found here: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-09-013.html.
The recent request for P20 applications in urology, dated December 2009, can be found here: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-10-001.html.
The recent request for P30 applications in polycystic kidney disease, dated December 2009, can be found here: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-DK-09-007.html.
A tutorial on the basics of NIDDK grant preparation and submission is available here: http://www2.niddk.nih.gov/Funding/Grants.
NIH Information for Applicants
General information about NIH P series program program/center grants, including the P20, P30 and P50, can be found here: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/funding_program.htm#PSeries.
Page last updated: September 08, 2010
