Rapid Response: Reinvesting in Racial and Indigenous Health Equity Research

Note: This is not a limited submission and is being announced as a courtesy only.

The purpose of this call for proposals is to meet the current moment by supporting timely, actionable health equity research that has been interrupted by shifts in federal funding. We will award up to $5 million for Rapid Response Research grants to help at least partially offset federal funding losses to existing research.

Rapid Response Research funding is exclusively available to applicants who have already received federal funding (e.g., from the NIH, CDC, NSF) for their health equity research, but have since had their funding partially or fully rescinded due to federal administrative actions. While we will not re-scrutinize the scientific merits of projects that have lost federal funding, our intent is to support research consistent with Evidence for Action’s mission to advance community-centered, action-oriented racial and Indigenous health equity research that focuses on structural solutions that are innovative, push beyond the status quo, and target root causes.

Eligibility Requirements

• Applicants must have lost federal funding for their health equity research project to be eligible to apply (those who have submitted an application for federal funding that will no longer be reviewed due to executive orders, are not eligible). Documentation demonstrating how the research project has been interrupted is required (e.g., a termination letter, stop work order, emails or other communications directly from the federal funding agency). 
• Submissions from teams that include both U.S. and international members are eligible, but the lead applicant organization must be based in the United States or its occupied territories and the research must focus on improving health equity in the United States. Research that focuses on populations residing outside of the U.S. or its occupied territories is ineligible for funding under this call.
• We welcome applications from organizations with project directors (PDs) of all personal and professional backgrounds. We will prioritize applications that include PDs who are early to midcareer antiracist or anticolonial researchers who are within 15 years of completion of their last earned degree (i.e., the PD received their last degree in or after 2010).
• PDs for this award need not have been the Principal Investigator or PD of the originally funded project
• We especially encourage project director(s) having backgrounds and life experiences that are underrepresented on research teams, including Indigenous , Black, Latino, and other persons of color  to apply.
• Project directors receiving greater than 50% of their salary from a current RWJF grant are not eligible to apply.

E4A primarily funds social science-oriented and applied research projects. Biomedical, clinical, and bench science projects are not eligible. We will prioritize research focused on structural solutions to the social determinants of health over those related to specific disease diagnoses or treatment.