DoD Lung Cancer, Idea Development Award | W81XWH 19 LCRP IDA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 19 LCRP IDA

The DoD Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP) Idea Development Award (FY19) is designed to fund early-stage lung cancer research ideas that are not yet fully developed but have strong potential to generate meaningful data and open up new directions for the field. The program is specifically looking for conceptually innovative projects that carry a high-risk/high-reward profile, meaning the work may be exploratory or unconventional but could reasonably lead to critical discoveries or major advances that help reduce deaths and suffering from lung cancer. Applications are expected to be grounded in a strong scientific rationale and to present a clear, well-formulated, testable hypothesis rather than a purely descriptive or exploratory aim without a defined question.

A central expectation of this opportunity is that the proposed work is both innovative and potentially high impact. Innovation, as defined here, can include introducing a new research paradigm, challenging widely held assumptions, reframing existing lung cancer problems from a new perspective, or applying uniquely creative approaches that are not simply incremental improvements on established methods. Impact is framed in practical terms: the research should have a credible pathway to accelerating progress toward eliminating lung cancer mortality and morbidity, either by enabling major scientific leaps, providing pivotal supporting evidence for a new line of investigation, or positioning the field for near-term breakthroughs.

The award also places strong emphasis on feasibility, requiring preliminary data to support the hypothesis and proposed approach. Importantly, those preliminary data do not have to come directly from lung cancer studies; they can originate from related diseases, model systems, technologies, or prior platform work, as long as they convincingly demonstrate that the research strategy is workable. This requirement signals that while the program welcomes bold ideas, it still expects applicants to show enough supporting evidence to justify investment in the proposed direction.

Collaboration with Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs research environments is explicitly encouraged. Applications that include submissions from, or partnerships with, investigators based at DoD military treatment facilities and laboratories, as well as VA medical centers and research laboratories, are viewed favorably. This emphasis reflects the program's interest in research that can leverage military and veteran health systems, relevant patient populations, specialized clinical or laboratory capabilities, and translational pathways that connect discovery research to real-world impact.

A notable feature of this funding mechanism is its dedicated pathway for early-career researchers through the New Investigator category. Investigators who are independent and within 10 years of their first faculty appointment (or an equivalent career milestone) can apply as New Investigators and compete in a separate review track from established investigators. Both peer review and programmatic review are conducted separately for New Investigators versus Established Investigators, which is intended to create a fairer competitive environment for researchers who may have smaller track records or fewer resources. New Investigator applicants are strongly encouraged to build collaborations with researchers who have established lung cancer expertise or other key skills that complement the PI's background. The application must clearly explain how those collaborations strengthen the team's ability to answer the research question and carry out the work successfully, and applicants must meet specific eligibility requirements for the New Investigator designation.

Administratively, this is a discretionary Department of Defense funding opportunity administered by the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA) under the Department of Defense, Department of the Army. The funding opportunity number is W81XWH-19-LCRP-IDA, and it falls under CFDA 12.420 (military medical research and development). The instrument types listed include both grants and cooperative agreements, indicating that awards may be structured either as standard assistance awards or with more substantial government involvement depending on the specific project and program needs. Eligibility is described as unrestricted (open to any entity type), subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the full announcement. The opportunity was posted March 22, 2019, with an original closing date of August 21, 2019, and the program anticipated making about six awards. The listing shows an award ceiling of 0, which commonly indicates that the maximum dollar amount is not specified in the summary field and would need to be confirmed in the full funding announcement and associated budget guidance.

Overall, the DoD LCRP Idea Development Award is best understood as a mechanism for pushing the lung cancer field toward new, potentially transformative directions by supporting carefully justified, hypothesis-driven projects that are still emerging but have enough preliminary support to be credible. It intentionally balances ambition with feasibility, encourages meaningful collaboration with DoD and VA research settings, and provides an explicit on-ramp for early-career investigators to compete in a separate track while building teams that can execute innovative work with real potential to change the trajectory of lung cancer outcomes.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Lung Cancer, Idea Development Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 22, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Aug 21, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

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