The Institutional Development Award (IDeA) is a congressionally mandated program that builds research capacity in states that historically have had low levels of NIH funding. It supports competitive basic, clinical, and translational research, faculty development, and infrastructure improvements.
The program aims to strengthen an institution’s ability to support biomedical research, enhance the competitiveness of investigators in securing research funding, and enable clinical and translational research that addresses the needs of medically underserved communities.
IDeA-eligible states include: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming, and Puerto Rico.
The IDeA program has five main components:
- Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE): Supports thematic, multidisciplinary research centers that strengthen institutional biomedical research capacity
- IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE): Supports a statewide biomedical research development network in each IDeA-eligible state that partners research-intensive institutions with primarily undergraduate institutions.
- IDeA Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR): Supports clinical and translational research through the IDeA-states network by developing research infrastructure and human resources, enhancing an investigator’s ability to develop a competitive research program, and increasing collaborative research activities that target health conditions prevalent in the medically underserved and rural communities.
- IDeA Co-funding: Supports R01 and R15 applications from investigators in IDeA-eligible states assigned to any NIH institute or Center (IC) that received meritorious score during peer review but fell beyond the pay lines of the IC’s submitted to. NIH ICs select and submit eligible applications to NIGMS for consideration for IDeA Co-funding support.
- STTR Regional Technology Transfer Accelerator Hubs for IDeA States: Supports the commercialization of innovative technologies and methodologies developed in IDeA states through Regional Technology Transfer Accelerator Hubs. The accelerator hubs act as regional consortia to provide infrastructure and build an entrepreneurial culture at IDeA institutions within each region.