health · HHS-NIH11

Validation Center for Precision Medicine with AI: Integrating Imaging with Multimodal Data (PRIMED-AI) (U54 Clinical Trials Not Allowed)

National Institutes of Health · RFA-RM-27-014

38 days left

Award Range

$0 – $2.0M

Total Program Funding

$2.7M

Expected Awards

Deadline

October 2, 2026

GRANTQUICK SUMMARYPlain-English Overview

NIH is funding ONE Validation Center ($2M/year for 3+ years) for the PRIMED-AI consortium — a central facility that independently validates AI models developed by the other PRIMED-AI teams. The center ensures models work across diverse populations, different scanner types, and various clinical settings before anyone deploys them to patients. Think: independent quality control for medical AI.

Who Should Apply

Major academic institutions with large, diverse imaging datasets, AI validation expertise, and the infrastructure to test models across multiple sites/populations. Must be independent from model developers.

Who Should NOT Apply

Organizations also applying to develop models (conflict of interest — validator must be independent), small institutions without multi-site validation capacity, or foreign entities.

Key Requirements (Plain English)

•Single award — must serve as THE validation center
•Must have diverse, multi-site imaging datasets for testing
•Must independently validate AI models across populations and settings
•Must NOT be a model developer (independence required)
•$2M/year, 1 award only

💡 GrantQuick Tip

One award. You're competing against institutions like Mayo Clinic, Mass General, UCSF, and Duke for the role of independent validator. The key: demonstrate DATASET DIVERSITY (multiple demographics, scanner vendors, clinical sites) and methodological rigor in AI validation. Your existing multi-site research network is your main selling point.

Competitiveness: Extremely high for a single award — but the independence requirement (can't also be developing models) narrows the field to pure validation/testing institutions.

What This Grant Funds

The overarching goal of this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) and its companion opportunities is to establish the Precision Medicine with AI: Integrating Imaging with Multimodal Data (PRIMED-AI) Program to support development of innovative, reliable, cost-effective, and sustainable multimodal AI-based clinical decision support (CDS) tools. PRIMED-AI CDS tools are based on the integration of clinical imaging with other types of multimodal health data to enhance care for patients with a wide range of health conditions. The PRIMED-AI Program seeks to catalyze the adoption of AI-based CDS tools into clinical workflows to enable novel personalized medicine strategies that address significant health challenges. The purpose of this NOFO is to solicit applications for the creation of a Validation Center to serve as a dedicated hub for the comprehensive evaluation and characterization of AI-enabled, image-based, multimodal CDS tools developed by the PRIMED-AI Consortium, to ensure these tools are reliable, reproducible, and generalizable. The Validation Center will focus on verification, validation, interoperability, and uncertainty quantification to comprehensively characterize performance of the CDS tools developed by the program. The core functions of the Validation Center will involve the systematic validation of PRIMED-AI Consortium deliverables, including those emerging from award recipients under the Playbook, Data-to-Model Academic-Industrial Partnerships, and Model-to-Clinic NOFOs.

Attachments

PDF

RFA-RM-27-014-Full-Announcement.html

Who Can Apply

Refer to Section III. Eligibility Information in the NOFO for additional information on eligibility.Foreign Organizations/International Collaborations:Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Organization) are not eligible to apply.Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, are not allowed.

Eligible Applicant Types

Special District GovernmentsOther (see NOFO for details)Small BusinessesIndependent School Districts501(c)(3) NonprofitsPublic And Indian Housing AuthoritiesFor-Profit OrganizationsFederally Recognized Tribal GovernmentsState GovernmentsNonprofits without 501(c)(3)Public Colleges & UniversitiesPrivate Colleges & UniversitiesCounty GovernmentsOther Tribal OrganizationsCity/Township Governments

Funding Details

Maximum Award: $2.0M
Total Program Funding: $2.7M
Expected Number of Awards: 1
Cost Sharing Required?: No
Funding Instrument: cooperative_agreement

Key Dates

Posted: June 30, 2026

Application Deadline: October 2, 2026 (38 days remaining)

Agency Contact

PRIMED-AI Program ODPRIMED-AI@od.nih.gov

ODPRIMED-AI@od.nih.gov

Ready to apply?

View the full NOFO and submit your application on Grants.gov

View on Grants.gov