BRAIN Initiative: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - TeamBCP (U19) | RFA NS 17 018

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA NS 17 018

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity called "BRAIN Initiative: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - TeamBCP (U19)" (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-NS-17-018) is designed to support large, integrated team-science programs focused on understanding how neural circuits produce behavior. The emphasis is on interdisciplinary, multi-component projects that use advanced and innovative technologies to study circuit function in a way that leads to clear, meaningful scientific outcomes over a 5-plus-year horizon. This is offered as a cooperative agreement (U19), which typically means NIH staff will have substantial involvement in coordinating and overseeing aspects of the program compared with a standard research grant.

At the core of this opportunity is a push to uncover general principles of circuit function, but always grounded in a specific neural system and behavioral domain. Proposed research is expected to connect circuit activity to domains such as sensation and perception, emotion and motivation, cognition and decision-making, motor control, communication, and homeostasis. Rather than purely descriptive mapping, the FOA pushes applicants to test how circuits operate dynamically by carefully controlling stimuli and/or behavior while recording from and/or manipulating neural activity patterns, then measuring the resulting effects on perception and behavior. The intended result is a stronger causal and mechanistic understanding of how central nervous system circuits compute, adapt, and drive actions and internal states.

A defining requirement is that applications be theory- or model-driven, using explicit theoretical constructs to guide experimental design. Teams are expected to develop and deliver predictive models as concrete outputs, not just post hoc interpretations. Quantitative and mechanistic modeling approaches are strongly encouraged when appropriate, meaning proposals should ideally specify how modeling will shape hypotheses, experimental structure, and interpretation, and how predictions will be tested empirically. In practical terms, a competitive application would likely describe an iterative loop where modeling informs experiment selection and experimental results refine models, all aimed at producing testable predictions about circuit function and behavior.

The FOA also places unusual weight on data and methods infrastructure. Awardees will be required to manage data and analysis methods within a prototype framework that is developed and used during the U19 project, and then shared with other U19 awardees for refinement and broader development. This signals a strong expectation that projects will not only generate scientific findings but also contribute to community-facing, interoperable approaches for data handling and analysis. Applicants would need to plan for standardized workflows, documentation, and exchange of tools or pipelines, with enough rigor that other funded teams can meaningfully adopt, test, and improve them.

In terms of experimental scope, the program is flexible about model systems. Projects may use one or multiple species, ranging from invertebrates to humans, as long as the choice is well justified by the scientific goals and the circuit-behavior questions being asked. The clear message is that the biological system should be selected to maximize insight into circuit mechanisms and to enable the kinds of controlled perturbation, recording, and behavioral measurement needed to support predictive modeling.

Because these awards are meant to fund integrated, multi-part team programs, budgets are expected to match the needs of large interdisciplinary collaborations. The FOA explicitly anticipates teams that cross boundaries and combine expertise from fields such as neurobiology, statistics, physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science, and data science. Applicants are encouraged to build programs where the collaboration is not superficial, but instead structured so that different disciplines are essential to achieving shared milestones and deliverables, including models, datasets, and analytical frameworks.

The award structure is five years of support with the possibility of one competing renewal, and the FOA anticipated making about five awards. The original closing date listed for this specific opportunity was October 17, 2017, and the opportunity was created on December 2, 2016, which is relevant for understanding its historical context as an earlier phase of BRAIN Initiative team-circuit funding.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S.-based organizations and governments, such as public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits (with and without 501(c)(3) status), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), small businesses, and various local, county, state, special district, and tribal entities (including federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations). The FOA also highlights additional eligible categories such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), as well as faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, eligible federal agencies, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it draws a firm line on foreign eligibility: non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply, and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, "foreign components" as defined under the NIH Grants Policy Statement are allowed, meaning a U.S. applicant organization may be able to include certain types of foreign collaborations or elements if they meet NIH’s definition and policy requirements.

Overall, this opportunity is best understood as a large-scale, collaborative BRAIN Initiative mechanism aimed at moving beyond identifying where activity occurs in the brain toward explaining how circuit dynamics generate behavior. It expects teams to combine cutting-edge measurement and perturbation tools with rigorous theory and modeling, produce predictive and testable accounts of circuit function, and build shared data/analysis infrastructure that can be exchanged and improved across funded programs.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "BRAIN Initiative: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - TeamBCP (U19)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.173, 93.213, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.286, 93.853, 93.865, 93.866, 93.867.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-12-02.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-10-17. (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 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA NS 17 018

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