DoD Spinal Cord Injury, Clinical Trial Award | W81XWH 21 SCIRP CTA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 21 SCIRP CTA

The Department of Defense Spinal Cord Injury Research Program (SCIRP) Clinical Trial Award (CTA) is a competitive funding opportunity designed to move promising spinal cord injury (SCI) interventions into clinical testing quickly, with a clear emphasis on real-world impact. The core purpose of the award is to support clinical trials that could meaningfully change how SCI is treated or managed, not only in the near term but also by setting the stage for longer-term improvements in care. Proposals are expected to spell out, in practical terms, how the study could improve outcomes for people living with SCI and, where relevant, for their care partners (such as family members or caregivers who share the day-to-day burden of care and support).

This award is geared toward trials that align with one or more of the FY21 SCIRP Focus Areas, meaning applicants must connect their intervention and trial design to the specific priority topics defined for that fiscal year. The program is open to a broad range of intervention types, reflecting the wide landscape of SCI research and rehabilitation. Supported trials can evaluate new or emerging products, pharmacologic agents (including drugs and biologics), medical devices, clinical guidance or care pathways, and other novel approaches or technologies that have credible potential to improve function, health, independence, secondary complications, or quality of life for individuals affected by SCI.

The opportunity is intentionally flexible about trial size and maturity, as long as the clinical trial is well-justified and positioned to generate actionable evidence. On one end, applicants may propose smaller proof-of-concept efforts, such as pilot studies, first-in-human evaluations, or early phase work (including phase 0) intended to demonstrate feasibility, characterize safety signals, refine procedures, or produce data needed to plan a larger definitive study. On the other end, the award can support larger-scale clinical trials aimed at determining efficacy in relevant patient populations, provided the trial is designed to answer a meaningful clinical question and deliver results that can influence practice, guidelines, or next-step development decisions.

While traditional randomized clinical trials remain an acceptable approach, the program explicitly allows alternative trial designs. This is important in SCI research, where patient heterogeneity, recruitment constraints, ethical considerations, and rapidly evolving technology can make standard designs impractical or suboptimal. That said, any alternative design must be appropriate to the specific objective of the study, and applicants are expected to justify why their design is the best fit for the intervention, population, endpoints, and implementation realities.

Administratively, the funding opportunity is listed as W81XWH 21 SCIRP CTA and is administered by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Activity (USAMRAA). It falls under the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category and is associated with CFDA number 12.420. The funding mechanism may be a grant or a cooperative agreement, which typically indicates that some awards may involve a higher level of government involvement or coordination during the project period, depending on the terms and the nature of the work.

Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning it is broadly open to applicants across entity types, subject to any additional eligibility clarifications that may have been included in the full announcement. The posted expectation was approximately three awards. The listing shows an award ceiling of 0, which generally signals that the ceiling was not specified in the summary field and that applicants would need to consult the full solicitation for detailed budget limits, allowable costs, and any caps by project type or duration. The opportunity was created March 29, 2021, with an original closing date of September 3, 2021, placing it as a FY21-cycle program announcement.

Overall, the SCIRP Clinical Trial Award is aimed at accelerating clinically grounded SCI research that can translate into tangible benefits, whether by validating a new therapeutic strategy, proving feasibility of an innovative technology, testing a device or biologic, or generating the kind of evidence that directly informs larger pivotal trials and, ultimately, improved standards of care.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Spinal Cord Injury, Clinical Trial Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 29, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Sep 03, 2021. (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 3 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 21 SCIRP CTA

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