BRAIN Initiative Research Grants

Promoting Equity Through BRAIN Technology Partnerships

Supports planning for equitable neurotechnology partnerships through collaborative initiatives across the United States.

⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.

RFA-NS-25-016 is an R34 planning grant issued under the NIH BRAIN Initiative, with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) as the lead funding institute. The R34 is NIH's developmental planning mechanism — it funds the preparatory work needed to design and eventually submit a larger study, including partnership formation, protocol development, and feasibility assessment. This particular announcement focuses on promoting equity through neurotechnology partnerships: applicants are expected to develop plans for ensuring that the benefits of BRAIN Initiative technologies reach diverse and underserved communities, not just research-intensive institutions in major urban centers. The RFA-NS prefix identifies NINDS as the primary issuing institute.

Eligible applicants are U.S.-based nonprofits, universities, and research organizations; for-profit entities and individual investigators are not eligible. All applicant operations must be in the United States. Award amounts specific to this RFA are not captured in available sources — R34 grants carry NIH-standard planning budgets that should be confirmed in the full NOFO. Full eligibility details, page limits, review criteria, and due dates are in the NOFO PDF on the NIH Guide (grants.nih.gov), which was not extracted at catalog ingest.

Applications to RFA-NS-25-016 should demonstrate a concrete plan for building or formalizing a partnership that connects BRAIN Initiative neurotechnology resources or expertise to communities that currently lack access, whether through geography, institutional capacity, or other barriers. NINDS and the BRAIN Initiative have emphasized equity, diversity, and inclusion as explicit scientific priorities in recent years. Competitive submissions will go beyond aspirational equity framing to present a specific community partnership model, identified partner organizations, and a feasible planning timeline that positions the team for a successful follow-on application.