The FY18 Defense Appropriations Act provides $10 million (M) to the Department of Defense Hearing Restoration Research Program (HRRP) to support innovative, high-impact hearing restoration research. As directed by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, the Defense Health Agency (DHA) J9, Research and Development Directorate manages the Defense Health Program (DHP) Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) appropriation. The managing agent for the anticipated Program Announcements/Funding Opportunities is the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

FY18 HRRP Program Announcements and General Application Instructions for the following award mechanisms are posted on Grants.gov.

The mission of the HRRP is to advance the science of hearing restoration by delivering groundbreaking research and solutions that remove barriers to the successful treatment of auditory system injury. Applications submitted to the FY18 HRRP must addresses one or more of the following Focus Areas (revised for FY18):

• Develop reliable in vitro human models for evaluating hearing restoration therapies.
• Accelerate translation of biological regeneration mechanisms into therapies that restore auditory function.
• Develop and or validate techniques/methods to assess and or treat auditory dysfunction as related to synaptopathy, hidden hearing loss, and central auditory processing disorders.

http://cdmrp.army.mil/funding/hrrp

Translational Research Award (TRA) – Preproposal due July 17, 2018

• Independent investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)
• Preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.
• Supports animal and human studies to:
• develop reliable in vitro human models for evaluating hearing restoration therapies, or
• Accelerate translation of biological regeneration into therapies that restore auditory function, including, for example, synaptic plasticity and hair cell and neural regeneration.
• Preliminary data required.
• Clinical trials are not allowed.
• Maximum funding of $1M for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
• Maximum period of performance is 3 years

Focused Research Award (FRA) – Preproposal due July 17, 2018

• Independent investigators at all academic levels (or equivalent)
• Preproposal is required; application submission is by invitation only.
• Supports animal and human studies to develop and/or validate techniques and/or methods to assess and/or treat auditory dysfunction as related to synaptopathy, hidden hearing loss, and central auditory processing disorders. Examples include:
• • field tool(s) to diagnose hidden hearing loss and to inform operational readiness;
  • batteries of differential diagnostics tests that pinpoint the location(s) of auditory damage;
  • treatments for the various types of damage that result in the loss of hearing leading to decreased operational readiness.
• Preliminary data required.
• Clinical trials are not allowed.
• Maximum funding of $1M for direct costs (plus indirect costs)
• Maximum period of performance is 3 years

A pre-application is required and must be submitted through the electronic Biomedical Research Application Portal (eBRAP) at https://eBRAP.org prior to the pre-application deadline. All applications must conform to the final Program Announcements and General Application Instructions available for electronic downloading from the Grants.gov website. The application package containing the required forms for each award mechanism will also be found on Grants.gov. A listing of all CDMRP funding opportunities can be obtained on the Grants.gov website by performing a basic search using CFDA Number 12.420.

Extramural applications must be submitted through the federal government’s single-entry portal, Grants.gov. For email notification when Program Announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org. For more information about the HRRP or other CDMRP-administered programs, please visit the CDMRP website (http://cdmrp.army.mil).

Point of Contact:

CDMRP Help Desk 
301-682-5507 
help@eBrap.org