2 Year Funding for New CaRE2 Pilot Projects
Funding Opportunity Announcement for CaRE2 Research Projects
Release Date: May 7, 2025
Estimated Publication Date of Funding Opportunity Announcement: May 7, 2025
Letter of Intent Deadline: July 2, 2025
First Application Due Date: October 1, 2025
Earliest Estimated Start Date: September 1, 2026
Issued by
Florida-California Cancer Research, Education and Engagement (CaRE2) Center (NIH/NCI U54CA233396, U54CA233444, U54CA233465)
Overview
The Florida-California Cancer Research, Education and Engagement (CaRE2) Center is an NCI-funded bicoastal cancer research and training center that brings together unique expertise and resources from Florida A&M University (FAMU), the University of Florida (UF), and the University of Southern California Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center (USC-NCCC) to address cancer health disparities in Florida and California.
The mission of the CaRE2 Center is to eliminate cancer health disparities for all. It is the goal of the Center to elucidate the biological basis of disparities in cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality in populations experiencing cancer health disparities, increase the number of cancer researchers interested in cancer health disparities, and empower communities to effectively address cancer health disparieties in their respective communities through community engagement, education and advocacy.
The overall objectives of the CaRE2 Center are the following:
- Coalesce expertise, infrastructure and share resources in support of interdisciplinary and multi-institutional innovative translational research focused on understanding the biological basis of disparities capturing the wide heterogeneity within populations.
- Provide a continuum of cancer health disparities research training for trainees and early stage investigators (ESIs) that fosters their individual career development toward conducting translational cancer research focused on the cancer health disparities among populations.
- Leverage existing community partnerships and infrastructure to: (i) educate communities about cancer prevention and control, including health advocates, patients and the community; and (ii) promote participation in biomedical research.
- Implement a systematic planning and evaluation plan to improve Center effectiveness.
Purpose
CaRE2 is currently accepting letters of intent (LOI) for pilot projects focused on cancer health disparities. The CaRE2 Center will provide funding support for high impact multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional research projects competitively selected through a scientific peer-review process. All applications are expected to address cancer disparities. Priority will be given to Pancreas, Lung, and Prostate cancer projects and those including trainees and community representatives. Other cancer disparities research may be considered.
Eligibility
To be eligible to submit a LOI for this Florida-California CaRE2 Funding Opportunity, the following criteria must be met:
- All candidates must be members of the Florida-California CaRE2 Health Equity Center. This is a free membership and is open to all investigators and trainees at UF, FAMU, and USC, as well as community leaders and advocates, who share our interest to reduce cancer health disparities. If you are not a member of the Florida-California CaRE2 Center, you may access the Membership Application by clicking the following link: CaRE2 Membership Application The application will take approximately 3 – 5 minutes of your time to complete.
- Eligible candidates are any individuals with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed research as the Project Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI). The PIs should be scientists or science administrators who are faculty members that can provide effective administrative and scientific leadership. Investigators from all of the three institutions must serve as Principal Investigators (PIs). Individuals interested in advancing scientific knowledge toward the elimination of cancer health disparities are strongly encouraged to apply.
- Priorities will be given to projects including trainee(s) and a patient advocate as members of the research team
Funding Information
Expected Number of Awards and Funding: Three, 2-year pilot projects ($40,000 direct costs per year per institution). Awards contingent on funding from NCI.
CaRE2’s Planning and Evaluation Core (PEC)
Dr. Ukamaka (Amy) Smith (FAMU)
Dr. Joyce Richey (USC)
Dr. LaToya O’Neal (UF)
How to Apply
- Candidates are asked to submit a letter of intent (LOI) electronically by July 2, 2025; submissions received after that time will not be considered. The purpose of the LOIs are to screen applicants and ensure that only proposals relevant to the aims outlined for the CaRE2 Center are considered. The LOI application will include: (i) 2-page technical abstract, (ii) a statement of relevance to cancer health disparity, (iii) NIH biosketch of all key personnel, and (iv) resources. Applicants must propose to utilize at least one of the CaRE2 Shared Resources: the Tissue Modeling Core, which includes a virtual biorepository, or the Bioinformatics, Statistics and Methodological Core. For more information about these cores visit: https://care2healthequitycenter.org
LOIs will be reviewed based on the following criteria on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the best: (i) evidence of congruence with CaRE2 Center’s mission and goals; (ii) representation of UF, FAMU, and USC investigators as PIs and partnership plan; (iii) investigators’ expertise; (iv) composition of team, e.g., inclusion of trainee(s) and a community representative ; and (v) relevance to cancer health disparity.
Applicants selected by the review committee will receive a letter of invitation to submit a full proposal by August 7, 2025. Full proposals will be due by October 1, 2025. Guidelines for the full proposal submission will be provided. Final recommendations for funding will be made by April 2026. The Planning and Evaluation Core will provide grant writing assistance and technical support to selected finalists as final grants are prepared for submission by June 1, 2026 and then submitted to NCI with the U54 annal report (RPPR). Upon NCI approval, the funding and project start date will be September 1, 2026.
Please complete and submit the Qualtrics LOI form by July 2, 2025 at the following link:
Timeline
| Item | Due Dates |
| Call for expression of interest to identify interested investigators (submit form & NIH biosketch) | 2/5/25 |
| Deadline to submit an expression of interest (submit online form, including NCI biosketch) | 2/28/25 |
| Information Session and Virtual Summit (SPEED TALKS) | 3/17/25 |
| Release of RFA (include Priorities and LOI expectations) | 5/7/25 |
| Letter of Interest (LOI) submission | 7/2/25 |
| Internal and community advisory committees complete LOI review | 7/30/25 |
| Selected teams are notified and invited to submit Full applications | 8/8/25 |
| Deadline to submit full applications | 10/1/25 |
| Review and recommendation of applications | 11/15/2025 |
| Preliminary Review of selected applications by Program Steering Committee (PSC) | December 2025 |
| Feedback provided to applicants for re-submission of selected applications | 1/15/2026 |
| Re-submission of applications responsive to PSC feedback | February 2026 |
| Notification of funding recommendations pending PSC final approval | March 1, 2026 |
| PSC Final Project Review and Funding Recommendations | April 2026 |
| Notification of funding recommendations | April 2026 |
| Deadline for final complete application submission to NCI | 6/1/26 |
| NCI Approval and Project Start Date | 9/1/26 |
