Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Collaborative Centers (U54) | RFA RM 17 020

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA RM 17 020

The Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Collaborative Centers (U54) funding opportunity (RFA-RM-17-020) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) cooperative agreement designed to build coordinated, Africa-focused research capacity around the ethical, legal, and societal issues that arise in human genomics and environmental health research. The core purpose is to create Collaborative Centers that can tackle ELSI questions that are too complex, cross-cutting, or geographically widespread for a single project or institution to address effectively. Rather than supporting isolated studies, this program emphasizes partnership-based work that produces shared knowledge, harmonized approaches, and continent-relevant guidance for research and policy.

A central priority of the announcement is the study of new or emerging ELSI issues affecting multiple communities across Africa, with a strong emphasis on bioethics, legal scholarship, and social science analysis. In practical terms, this signals interest in topics like informed consent in diverse linguistic and cultural settings, community engagement models, governance of genomic and health-related data, privacy and confidentiality in contexts with varying legal protections, fairness and benefit sharing, cultural considerations around biospecimen collection and storage, return of results and incidental findings, stigma and discrimination risks, and responsible cross-border collaboration. Because the FOA spans both human genome research and environmental health research, it also points to ethical and social questions tied to environmental exposures, public health surveillance, and the intersection of genetics with environmental determinants of health.

The program structure is explicitly collaborative. Each award is expected to support a network of 3 to 5 collaborating research projects distributed across at least three African institutions. The intent is that the center functions as a true partnership, where the combined work accomplishes more than any single project could achieve alone. This approach encourages shared methods, coordinated ethics and governance thinking, comparative analyses across sites or countries, and outputs that can be generalized or adapted across regions, rather than being limited to a single local case study.

Administratively, the award mechanism is a U54 cooperative agreement, meaning NIH anticipates substantial involvement with awardees during the project period compared with a standard grant. The opportunity sits in the health funding activity category and is associated with CFDA number 93.310. The published award ceiling is $500,000. The original closing date listed for applications was December 6, 2017, and the FOA creation date is September 19, 2017.

Eligibility includes public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, and other eligible entities as described in the full announcement. A notable feature is that non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) are eligible to apply, aligning with the Africa-centered mission of H3Africa. At the same time, non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply as applicants under this FOA. Foreign components, as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are allowed, which supports international collaboration while keeping the applicant eligibility rules clear. Overall, the opportunity is aimed at strengthening ethically grounded, legally informed, and socially responsive genomics and environmental health research across Africa through multi-institutional, coordinated ELSI research centers.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Human Heredity and Health in Africa (H3Africa): Ethical, Legal, and Societal Issues (ELSI) Collaborative Centers (U54)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.310.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-09-19.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2017-12-06. (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 $500,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, Others.

Apply for RFA RM 17 020

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