History of IDeA

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutional Development Award Program (IDeA) was established in 1993 to broaden the geographic distribution of NIH funding for biomedical and behavioral research. The program fosters health-related research and enhances the competitiveness of investigators at institutions located in states in which the aggregate success rate for applications to NIH has historically been low. The program also serves unique populations, such as rural and medically underserved communities, in these states. Supported by the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) Division of Research Infrastructure, the IDeA program increases the competitiveness of investigators by supporting faculty development and research infrastructure enhancement at institutions in 23 states and Puerto Rico.
Such infrastructure enhancement can include senior and junior faculty development; post-doctoral, student and staff development; recruitment of established scientists, post-doctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students; release time for teaching and clinical faculty; training opportunities in grant management; research equipment, core laboratories, facilities alteration and renovation; bioinformatics and other state-of-the-art research training for students and faculty; and connectivity.

The IDeA program has two main components, COBRE and INBRE.

Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) augment and strengthen institutional biomedical research capabilities by building multi-disciplinary research centers at doctoral institutions or research institutes. Each research center is led by an established investigator, who is funded by NIH, NSF, or a comparable Federal or private sector source and has expertise central to the theme of the grant proposal.

Each COBRE has a thematic scientific focus; 3-5 research projects, each supervised by a junior investigator; a defined plan for mentoring, career development, graduation and replacement of junior investigators; and long-term plans for developing and sustaining the center, research program, investigators, collaborations and physical infrastructure.

IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE) enhance biomedical research capacity, expand and strengthen the research capabilities of biomedical faculty and provide access to biomedical resources for promising undergraduate students throughout the eligible states. INBRE enhances research infrastructure through support of a statewide, multi-disciplinary, thematic research network of doctoral degree granting, research-intensive institutions, including undergraduate institutions.

Each INBRE aims to build and increase research capacity by supporting faculty, fellows and students at participating institutions. Additional INBRE goals include providing research support for undergraduate faculty and students; serving as a “pipeline” to health research careers; providing outreach to students at undergraduate institutions, community colleges and tribal colleges; and enhancing the statewide science and technology knowledge base.

The IDeA program also supports IDeANet, an Internet-based network providing connectivity for high-bandwidth science applications. IDeANet enables collaboration among institutions, ultimately supporting all participants in the IDeA program, as well as participants in the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program and other NCRR-supported networks.

For more information about the IDeA program, visit the IDeA website.