Biomedical Data Repositories and Knowledgebases (DRKB)

DRKB Established Repositories — Enhancement

Funds continued development and stewardship of established biomedical data repositories for broad access.

PAR-23-237, issued by the NIH Office of Data Science Strategy on August 31, 2023 as a multi-year program announcement, funds the enhancement and ongoing management of established biomedical data repositories and knowledgebases. This is the companion to PAR-23-236 (early-stage resources): PAR-23-237 targets resources already operating and serving the research community, providing sustained support for curation, infrastructure, and data access. The DRKB program distinguishes between repositories (data storage and distribution) and knowledgebases (curated annotation and semantic linking), and funds both types under this mechanism. Over 40 projects have been supported across prior funding cycles, including UniProt, GeneOntology, PhysioNet, FlyBase, WormBase, Reactome, BindingDB, the GWAS and PGS Catalogs, GlyGen, ImmPort, and the Alliance of Genome Resources.

Funding is delivered as U24 cooperative agreements — NIH actively co-directs project scope, and applicants should expect substantive NIH engagement throughout the award period, including quarterly interactions. Award budgets are negotiated based on scope rather than published as a fixed ceiling; prospective applicants are directed to drkb@list.nih.gov for budget guidance. Eligible applicants are U.S. nonprofits, universities, and research organizations; individual investigators and for-profit entities are not eligible. Funded resources must comply with NIH data-sharing policy and provide broad, ideally open, access.

Competitive applications to PAR-23-237 must document the resource's established user base, the research community's demonstrated reliance on it, its current curation and data-quality operations, and a credible plan for continued enhancement and long-term sustainability. Resources with a track record of NIH citation, broad data deposits, and integration into other NIH platforms — such as the NIH Cloud Platform Interoperability (NCPI) ecosystem — hold a competitive advantage. Multi-year PAR window remains open; verify current status in the NIH Guide before submitting.