Funding opp: $96 million for comparative clinical effectiveness research

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) announced its second cycle of funding requests to support $96 million in comparative clinical effectiveness research awards, or about 109 individual awards. Applications are being sought for PCORI Funding Announcements (PFAs) on four of the five areas of focus outlined in PCORI's National Priorities for Research and Research Agenda:

1. Assessment of Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment Options – for projects that address critical decisions that patients, their caregivers and clinicians face with too little information.
2. Improving Healthcare Systems – for projects that address critical decisions that face health care systems, the patients and caregivers who rely on them, and the clinicians who work within them.
3. Communication and Dissemination – for projects that address critical elements in the communication and dissemination process among patients, their caregivers and clinicians.
4. Addressing Disparities – for projects that will inform the choice of strategies to eliminate disparities.

Additional PFAs addressing PCORI's fifth priority, "Accelerating Patient-Centered and Methodological Research," will be issued this fall. [box]Letters of Intent for Cycle II are due by October 15, with applications due by December 17.[/box] Awards will be made in late spring. All application materials can be accessed from the PCORI website. PCORI has also posted the expected number of awards and total amounts by specific PFA. Applications for Cycle I awards were due on August 15. PCORI received about 1,300 Letters of Intent and just under 500 applications. The review process is underway and awards for Cycle I are expected to be announced in December.