On March 2, 2015, NIH and participating Institutes issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement titled “Mobilizing Research: A Research Resource to Enhance mHealth Research” http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-15-129.html. Funding for $2,000,000 will be used to support a resource called “Mobilizing Research” to enable researchers to rapidly evaluate mobile and wireless (mHealth) technologies.
The Mobilizing Research resource will use mobile phone technology to create a registry of demographically and geographically diverse individuals interested in potential research projects. This resource would allow researchers rapid access to potential study participants and reduce the time and cost for mHealth research.
Today while development of mHealth technologies is progressing at a rapid pace, research designed to build on these advances is moving much more slowly. In industry, very often technology products are created by small firms or consumer electronics companies, who frequently do so without a connection to healthcare professionals and scientists who can provide the necessary knowledge about end users.
Eligible applicants must be capable of working with wireless carriers to create a registry of potential participants to enable research across a variety of observational and clinical research studies and settings for a range of diseases and populations.
Applicants can be from universities, nonprofits, for-profits to include small businesses, and state, county, and local governments. The Letter of Intent is due April 8, 2015 and the due date for the proposal application is May 8, 2015.
Organizations within NIH participating in the research project include the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBBSR) http://obssr.nih.gov. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), www.nhlbi.nih.gov, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) www.niaaa.nih.gov, National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) www.nibib.nih.gov, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) www.ninds.nih.gov.