Coordination Center for the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) Program (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA GM 18 003

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA GM 18 003

The Coordination Center for the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) Program (U24, Clinical Trial Not Allowed) is a cooperative agreement funding opportunity from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) within the Department of Health and Human Services. It supports the creation and operation of a single MIDAS Coordination Center that functions as the organizing hub for the broader MIDAS investigator network, with a strong emphasis on coordination, shared infrastructure, and dissemination rather than running clinical trials. The award mechanism is a U24 cooperative agreement, which typically means NIH staff are expected to have substantial involvement during the project, such as guiding priorities, ensuring alignment with program goals, and supporting network-level coordination.

At its core, the Coordination Center is meant to be the central place where MIDAS research products come together and become usable by others. The center is expected to promote collaboration among MIDAS investigators, help test and validate modeling approaches and associated tools, and actively disseminate outputs so they can be found, understood, and applied by the community. A major, explicit responsibility is serving as the primary repository for MIDAS-related datasets, computational models, and software. That repository role implies not only storage, but also curation, documentation, versioning, and long-term stewardship so that the resources remain accessible, interpretable, and reusable over time.

Another major focus is maximizing the utility and uptake of MIDAS resources. In practical terms, this means the center is expected to make shared datasets and models easier to discover and use, encourage consistent standards (for example, metadata, file formats, model documentation, and licensing), and actively promote these resources across the network and to external stakeholders where appropriate. The goal is to ensure that modeling outputs do not remain siloed within individual research groups, but instead become well-supported shared assets that can accelerate infectious disease modeling, forecasting, and intervention analysis.

The opportunity also places responsibility on the Program Director(s)/Principal Investigator(s) to proactively build community and capability within the MIDAS network. This includes developing collaborative activities that bring investigators together around shared problems, common evaluation frameworks, and cross-project learning. It also includes organizing training opportunities intended to strengthen how MIDAS resources are used and to improve training experiences for network members, especially graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. This training component suggests activities such as workshops, webinars, documentation sprints, short courses on model implementation and reproducibility, or mentorship and onboarding structures that help new users engage with MIDAS tools and data effectively.

While the main mission is coordination and infrastructure, the announcement also allows a limited amount of funding for the Coordination Center to carry out its own impactful research. This research is specifically framed as evaluation and meta-analysis of existing modeling resources related to infectious disease spread and interventions. In other words, beyond hosting models and datasets, the center can contribute scientifically by assessing model performance, comparing approaches, synthesizing lessons across projects, and developing insights into what modeling practices or assumptions work best under different outbreak conditions or intervention strategies.

Eligibility for the opportunity is broad and includes many types of organizations: federal recognized tribal governments and tribal organizations, state and local governments, public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status, public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, and for-profit organizations (including small businesses). The funding opportunity is categorized as discretionary and falls under a health-related activity area (CFDA 93.859). NIH anticipated making one award under this announcement, indicating that applicants were competing to host the single coordinating hub for the MIDAS program during that project period.

Key administrative details from the source include the funding opportunity number RFA GM 18 003, a creation date of March 28, 2018, and an original closing date of May 31, 2018. The listed award ceiling is shown as 0 in the provided data, which typically signals that the ceiling was not specified in that particular extract rather than implying no funding. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as support for a centralized coordination, data/model/software stewardship, community building, and targeted evaluation function designed to strengthen and unify the MIDAS infectious disease modeling ecosystem.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Coordination Center for the Models of Infectious Disease Agent Study (MIDAS) Program (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.859.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 28, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 31, 2018. (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 1 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 (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for RFA GM 18 003

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