NEI Center Core Grant for Vision Research (P30) | PAR 17 322

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 17 322

The NEI Center Core Grant for Vision Research (P30), issued by the National Institutes of Health under funding opportunity number PAR-17-322 (CFDA 93.867), supports the creation or strengthening of shared research infrastructure for vision science. Rather than funding individual research projects directly, this mechanism is meant to build a centralized set of resources that multiple independently funded investigators can use. The core idea is to improve the overall productivity and competitiveness of an institution or consortium of investigators working on the visual system and eye diseases by making high-quality shared services available in a coordinated, cost-effective way.

A key requirement of this opportunity is that the proposed center includes at least three Resource and/or Service Cores. These cores are shared facilities or service units that support a group of investigators, particularly a community of R01-funded researchers, by offering capabilities that would be inefficient, duplicative, or too expensive for each lab to maintain on its own. The program is explicitly designed to consolidate resources, reduce redundant purchases and parallel efforts across labs, and deliver services either at lower cost or with higher quality than individual projects could reasonably achieve independently. In practice, this often means supporting shared instrumentation, specialized technical expertise, data services, or other centralized capabilities that many projects rely on.

The intended impact is broader than simply purchasing equipment. NEI emphasizes that accessible shared resources and facilities can increase the output of each participating project by improving efficiency and enabling more sophisticated experiments. By pooling demand across multiple research groups, a center can justify maintaining advanced instrumentation and skilled staff that might otherwise be out of reach for a single investigator. The opportunity also recognizes that each center can be designed differently depending on local scientific strengths and user needs; the structure and purpose of the cores can vary as long as they clearly enhance the institution’s capacity to conduct vision research and facilitate collaboration focused on the visual system and its disorders.

Eligibility is broad across U.S.-based organizations and government entities. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city governments; 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; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; Native American tribal organizations that are not federally recognized governments; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status (as long as they are not institutions of higher education); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) and small businesses; and other applicants as allowed under NIH policy. The announcement also calls out additional eligible categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, AANAPISI institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, tribal governments that are not federally recognized (as applicable), and U.S. territories or possessions.

At the same time, there are clear restrictions related to foreign involvement. Non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are not eligible to apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible. In addition, foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are not allowed under this program. These limitations mean the applicant organization and the work supported by the grant must be based domestically, without foreign components as part of the award.

Administratively, the opportunity is categorized as a discretionary grant in the Health activity area. The source data indicates an original closing date of 2019-09-18, and it does not specify an award ceiling or expected number of awards in the provided excerpt. Overall, the P30 is best understood as an institutional or multi-investigator enablement award: it is designed to strengthen an organized vision research environment by funding shared cores that help multiple NIH-funded projects run better, collaborate more effectively, and access higher-end resources than they could sustain alone.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "NEI Center Core Grant for Vision Research (P30)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.867.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-06-23.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-09-18. (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 17 322

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: