HEAL Initiative: HEAL Data2Action Acceleration Projects (R33 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DA 23 058

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DA 23 058

The HEAL Initiative: HEAL Data2Action (HD2A) Acceleration Projects (R33, Clinical Trial Not Allowed) funding opportunity, issued by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supports applied research projects that strengthen how existing opioid- and pain-related data are turned into practical action. The central purpose is to speed up and improve real-world decisions in the overdose crisis by making data ecosystems more timely, higher quality, more accessible, and more useful to the people who need them, including public health leaders, treatment providers, payers, researchers, and community partners. Rather than creating entirely new data streams from scratch, the program emphasizes synthesis, linkage, modernization, and methods development that help communities and systems respond faster and allocate resources more effectively.

These R33 Acceleration Projects sit within a broader, coordinated HD2A Program structure. NIH released multiple related funding announcements that are meant to function together, including awards for HD2A Innovation Projects, a Data Infrastructure Support Center, a Research Adoption Support Center, and an Economics and Modeling Resource Center. The intention is that individual projects do not operate in isolation; instead, they contribute to a shared national effort to improve the utility of data for epidemiology and for monitoring and improving service delivery. Applicants are expected to understand how their proposed work fits into this larger ecosystem and complements the roles of the coordinating centers and other project types.

Programmatically, HD2A aligns with the four pillars of the HHS Overdose Prevention Strategy: primary prevention, harm reduction, treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD), and recovery support. In practice, that means the funded work should ultimately help stakeholders better understand overdose and OUD trends (epidemiology) and improve how services are delivered and evaluated across these pillars. Projects might focus on issues like reducing delays in surveillance reporting, improving the completeness or comparability of measures across jurisdictions, building methods to harmonize data from different systems, or creating approaches that translate complex datasets into actionable indicators for policy and practice. The common thread is that the outcomes should make it easier to monitor needs, target interventions, and assess whether changes in services are actually improving outcomes.

A defining feature of this Acceleration FOA is readiness: it is intended for projects that already have preliminary or feasibility evidence supporting their approach, such as results from an R21 or an equivalent pilot effort. In other words, the work should be beyond the idea stage and positioned to move quickly into a more mature, scalable, or generalizable solution. This FOA is described as a companion to another announcement (RFA-DA-23-057) that targets applicants who do not yet have pilot data, reinforcing the expectation that R33 applications should be backed by early proof-of-concept results. Also, as stated in the title, clinical trials are not allowed under this mechanism, so the research should not involve assigning human participants to prospective interventions to evaluate health-related outcomes in the manner NIH defines as a clinical trial.

In terms of funding and administrative details, this is a discretionary grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-DA-23-058) with an award ceiling of $750,000. The original closing date listed for the opportunity was November 22, 2022, and the opportunity was created on September 21, 2022. The activity category is listed under Education and Health, and it is associated with CFDA numbers 93.213, 93.273, and 93.279. While the listing notes “ExpectedAwards” without a specific number, the broader HD2A structure indicates NIH anticipated funding multiple coordinated awards across the related announcements.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of domestic U.S. organizations and governments. Eligible applicants include state, county, city or township governments, special district governments, and independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations other than small businesses as well as small businesses; and other categories. The announcement also explicitly highlights additional eligible groups 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, regional organizations, eligible federal agencies, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it makes clear that non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply; however, foreign components as defined by NIH policy are allowed, meaning a U.S. applicant may include certain foreign elements when justified and compliant with NIH rules.

Overall, this FOA is best understood as support for teams that can quickly scale or harden an evidence-backed approach to improving opioid- and pain-related data systems, with the explicit goal of converting existing data into decisions and measurable improvements in prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support. The strongest-fit projects are those that can demonstrate feasibility, show a clear pathway to real-world adoption, and produce tools, methods, or data improvements that help decision-makers respond to the overdose crisis with better speed and precision.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "HEAL Initiative: HEAL Data2Action Acceleration Projects (R33 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): 93.213, 93.273, 93.279.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-09-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-11-22. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $750,000.00 in funding.
• 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.

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