RFA-DA-21-023 HEAL Initiative: HEALthy Brain and Child Development Data Coordinating Center (U24)

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to seek applications for a Data Coordinating Center for the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study. This FOA runs in parallel with companion FOAs that solicit applications for linked (RFA-DA-21-020) and unlinked (RFA-DA-21-021) research sites and a single Consortium Administrative Core (RFA-DA-21-022). It is expected that investigators, upon funding, will work jointly with NIH scientific staff to assist, guide, coordinate, and participate in project data collection and harmonization activities of HBCD research sites. The HBCD Data Coordinating Center (HDCC) will develop (and revise as necessary) the procedures for collection of the core neuroimaging, neuropsychological, and other phenotypic assessment data in a manner that will maximize comparability across the individual research sites of the consortium for the HBCD longitudinal study. The center will perform quality control, data curation, and analysis for the measures collected from the research sites as well as provide data informatics tools for sites and NIH program staff to monitor consortium progress and performance and explore the curated data. The HDCC will facilitate cross-site pooling of data, create a database across assessment modalities, and harmonize with existing large-scale neurodevelopmental research efforts. The successful applicant will propose a secure bioinformatics platform for data storage, harmonization and sharing that enables effective communication of detailed research data, tools for data access and analysis, supporting documentation and necessary training materials. The HDCC should include a director (or co-directors) and one or more associate directors to ensure that the wide scope of activities -- functions of supporting the HBCD Study consortium data and informatics enterprise and acting as a resource center to the scientific community at large -- are seamlessly coordinated.