Cancer Research Education Grants Program (R25)

The Cancer Research Education Grants Program (CREGP) (R25) provides support for educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs. Applications should propose innovative, state-of-the-art programs that address the cause, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, or the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.

Note: The details on this page are for informational purposes only. Please read and follow all requirements and instructions in the notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and the Table of IC-Specific Information linked therein before applying for an award. Application review information is described in the funding opportunity. If you have any questions before submitting your application, please contact the relevant NCI program staff listed at the end of this page. 

There are three CREGP notice of funding opportunity (NOFO)

1. Curriculum or Methods Development (PAR-23-278): supports curriculum or methods development activities that have a high potential to improve biomedical, behavioral or clinical cancer research education, or that involve the development of novel instructional approaches or computer-based tools for cancer research education. The curriculum or methods developed should be readily adaptable by the cancer research education community.

Note that this NOFO provides support to develop, test, and prepare the curriculum or methods developed for dissemination to the cancer research education community. It does not provide support for the actual offering of the developed curriculum or methods to identifiable participants at the applicant institution or elsewhere, which may be able to be supported through the companion NOFO (PAR-23-276), Courses for Skills Development.

Non-Responsive Applications

Applications with one or more of the characteristics listed below will be considered non-responsive and will not be reviewed:

• Proposed curriculum or method to be developed is not cancer-focused.
• Proposed curriculum or method to be developed is intended for students at or below the undergraduate level or for individuals who are not involved in providing health care or disseminating health information.
• Application proposes a research project, including an educational research project, rather than the development of a curriculum or method.
• Application proposes to adapt curricula or methods currently available through the existing core curricula at colleges, graduate schools, medical schools, or resident training programs.
• Application proposes to adapt a current or previous R25 funded curriculum or method to focus on a different target population.
• Application proposes to disseminate a current or previous R25 funded curriculum or method.

2. Courses for Skills Development (PAR-23-276): The proposed course for skills development should provide innovative, state-of-the-art, evidence-based cancer research education that is derived from biomedical, behavioral and clinical cancer research findings. All instructional activities must be completed within a 12-month period. Activities to evaluate the professional impact of the course on the participants may continue indefinitely, as feasible. The format of the course may involve a traditional in-person approach, online activities, or a hybrid of both approaches.

The course must be offered during each year that R25 support is requested. If the time required to develop the course would preclude this during the first year of support, applicants should instead consider applying for the companion funding opportunity (PAR-23-278), Curriculum or Methods Development (R25).

Non-Responsive Applications

Applications with one or more of the characteristics listed below will be considered non-responsive and will not be reviewed:

• Proposed course is not cancer-focused.
• Proposed course activities are not completed within a 12-month period.
• Proposed course is not offered each year that R25 support is requested.
• Proposed course is an adaptation of a current or previous NCI R25-funded course to focus on a different target population.
• Proposed course is intended for students at or below the undergraduate level or for individuals who are not involved in providing health care or disseminating health information.
• Application proposes a research project, including an educational research project, rather than a course.
• Proposed Evaluation Plan describes collecting data from individuals other than course participants, such as their supervisors or patients, which is not considered appropriate for an education program and may require IRB approval at participants' institutions.

3. Research Experiences (PAR-23-277): Proposed research experiences should involve an innovative approach to provide hands-on exposure to cancer research for a full-time (40 hours per week) period of 8 to 15 weeks in order to stimulate the interest and advance the knowledge base of participants to consider further education and training for future careers as cancer researchers. Ideally, the research experiences should provide opportunities for the participants to present their work at professional venues and/or earn co-authorship on peer-reviewed publications.

Complementary educational activities, such as seminars, journal clubs, grand rounds, field trips, career development presentations, etc., are encouraged as part of the research experiences program, but should not exceed more than 8 hours per week (20% of the full-time effort) on average.

The proposed programs should provide research experiences and related training that are not available through formal NIH training mechanisms.

It is expected that each participant will be integrated into the research setting of his/her assigned faculty mentor who will have direct oversight responsibility for the participant, which will include regular, in-person interaction. 

R25 programs that propose at least 8 weeks, but fewer than 15 weeks, of full-time research experiences are allowed to request continued part-time support for some or all of the participants to continue to work on their research projects, up to the equivalent of 15 weeks of full-time participation, as long as the entire research experience is completed within a 12-month period.

It is expected that most individuals will only receive support one time to participate in the R25 research experiences program. However, at the discretion of the PD(s)/PI(s), up to 20% of the participants may receive support to participate a second time, if they play a peer-to-peer mentor role for the new participants.

Non-Responsive Applications

Applications with one or more of the characteristics listed below will be considered non-responsive and will not be reviewed:

• Proposed research experiences are not cancer-focused.
• Proposed research experiences are not completed within a 12-month period.
• Proposed research experiences program is an adaptation of an NCI R25-funded research experiences program to focus on a different target population.