Silvio O. Conte Centers for Basic Neuroscience or Translational Mental Health Research (P50) | PAR 17 168

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 17 168

The Silvio O. Conte Centers for Basic Neuroscience or Translational Mental Health Research (P50) opportunity is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) center-style grant program designed to fund unusually ambitious, highly integrated team science in neuroscience and mental health research. The core idea is to support interdisciplinary research centers that bring together investigators working at different levels of analysis, for example spanning molecular and cellular neuroscience, circuits and systems, behavior, computational approaches, and human clinical or developmental studies. The FOA is aimed at projects that are explicitly high-risk and high-impact, and it emphasizes that the work should be greater than the sum of its parts, meaning the different projects and cores should be tightly coordinated and mutually reinforcing rather than loosely related subprojects housed under one umbrella.

In terms of scientific goals, the FOA highlights three main objectives. First, it seeks to push forward basic brain and behavior research that can uncover and dissect underlying mechanisms that ultimately lay the groundwork for understanding mental disorders. This includes foundational neuroscience that may not immediately look clinical but is expected to clarify how key neural and behavioral processes operate and fail. Second, it supports translational research efforts that intentionally integrate and translate between basic and clinical neuroscience, especially in the context of severe mental illnesses. That emphasis on translation is about building structured, two-way connections where clinical observations inform basic experiments and basic findings, in turn, refine hypotheses, biomarkers, or intervention targets relevant to patient populations. Third, it places strong value on research that explains neurobehavioral developmental mechanisms and trajectories that begin in childhood and adolescence, with the goal of clarifying how psychopathology emerges over time, why risk increases or decreases across development, and what mechanisms shape different outcomes.

A major defining feature of the Conte Centers program is the expectation of extraordinary synergy and integration. The FOA signals that this mechanism is not intended for typical collections of related projects that could be supported through more standard NIH awards. Instead, applicants are expected to justify why the center mechanism is essential, for example because the research requires sustained, coordinated collaboration across disciplines, shared resources and cores, common experimental or analytic platforms, integrated datasets, and iterative feedback between projects that would be difficult to manage under separate grants. In practice, a competitive application would usually demonstrate a coherent unifying theme, a set of interdependent research projects, and shared cores that enable efficiency and cross-project innovation, all organized around a question or set of questions whose answers would meaningfully advance the field.

The FOA also underscores a training and research-experience component. Beyond producing scientific results, Conte Centers are framed as environments that can provide interdisciplinary research experiences for students and postdoctoral researchers. The intent is to cultivate scientists who can operate across boundaries (for example, bridging animal and human research or linking computational and experimental approaches), and who are trained in the collaborative workflows that center grants are meant to foster.

Eligibility is broad across U.S.-based organizations and includes many government and academic entities as well as nonprofits and for-profits. Eligible applicants listed include state, county, city or township, and special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations other than federally recognized governments; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; small businesses; and other categories. The FOA also explicitly calls out additional eligible applicant types such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it draws clear boundaries for foreign participation: non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and foreign institutions are not eligible to apply as the applicant organization, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, foreign components are allowed as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, meaning a U.S. applicant may include certain foreign collaborations or activities if they meet NIH policy requirements and are well-justified.

Administratively, this is a discretionary NIH grant in the health area and is associated with CFDA number 93.242. The funding opportunity number is PAR-17-168, with a listed creation date of February 17, 2017, and an original closing date of January 23, 2018. The announcement does not provide an award ceiling or expected number of awards in the text provided, which typically means applicants would need to consult the full FOA and NIH institute guidance for budget expectations, project period limits, and any institute-specific constraints.

Overall, the opportunity is best understood as support for a center-level, team-based research program that aims to deliver major conceptual or mechanistic advances in neuroscience relevant to mental health, either through deeply integrative basic science, strong basic-to-clinical translation for severe mental illness, and/or developmental neuroscience focused on childhood and adolescent trajectories of psychopathology. The throughline is that the proposed center must be something that genuinely requires the P50 structure to succeed, and it should create a collaborative, cross-training research ecosystem that accelerates progress beyond what individual, stand-alone grants would typically accomplish.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Silvio O. Conte Centers for Basic Neuroscience or Translational Mental Health Research (P50)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.242.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-02-17.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-01-23. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• 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.

Apply for PAR 17 168

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