Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Coordinating Center (U2C) (Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA OD 22 021

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA OD 22 021

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity RFA-OD-22-021 seeks applications for an Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Cohort Coordinating Center under a U2C cooperative agreement mechanism, with clinical trials not allowed. The award is designed to support the central coordinating entity for the ECHO program, a large research consortium focused on understanding how environmental factors affect child health outcomes. In practice, this Coordinating Center is meant to serve as the operational backbone of the ECHO Cohort, providing the leadership structure, management capacity, and day-to-day infrastructure needed to keep a complex, multi-site national effort aligned, efficient, and productive.

A major theme of the opportunity is consortium-wide coordination. The Coordinating Center is expected to provide oversight and effective project management across all aspects of ECHO Cohort activities. That includes building and maintaining an organizational structure that can handle cross-site logistics, scheduling, documentation, milestone tracking, problem resolution, and consistent implementation of consortium decisions. Because ECHO involves multiple study sites and scientific cores working in parallel, the Coordinating Center role emphasizes operational leadership rather than running a standalone research study.

Another core responsibility is governance and communications support. The Coordinating Center is expected to support multiple ECHO Cohort committees and function as the centralized communications hub for the entire cohort consortium. This typically implies organizing meetings, supporting agenda and minutes development, facilitating coordination among committees and working groups, distributing consortium communications, maintaining shared resources, and helping ensure that information flows reliably between NIH, the Coordinating Center, study sites, and the various ECHO cores. The intent is to reduce fragmentation and create a consistent, centralized way for the consortium to coordinate decisions and actions.

The third headline function is administration of the Opportunities and Innovation Fund. Through this role, the Coordinating Center would manage processes for soliciting, reviewing, selecting, and overseeing time-sensitive or high-value add-on activities that enhance the cohort’s scientific reach or operational effectiveness. While the source text does not spell out detailed fund rules, the expectation is that the Coordinating Center will provide transparent administration and tracking so that these funds can be deployed to accelerate innovation, address emerging needs, and strengthen the overall ECHO enterprise.

This FOA is explicitly part of a broader, coordinated set of companion announcements that collectively fund the full ECHO ecosystem. In parallel, NIH is also soliciting applications for ECHO Cohort Study Sites (including different configurations: follow-up of existing participants, recruitment of new pregnant participants, or both), as well as an ECHO Data Analysis Center, an ECHO Measurement Core, and an ECHO Laboratory Core. The Coordinating Center is therefore not intended to operate in isolation; it is expected to interface closely with these other awardees so that the cohort’s operations, data workflows, measurement strategies, and lab processes are synchronized across the program.

Eligibility is broad and includes many common domestic applicant types: state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; public and private institutions of higher education; nonprofits (with or without 501(c)(3) status); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) and small businesses; and federally recognized Native American tribal governments as well as Native American tribal organizations that are not federally recognized. The FOA also highlights additional eligible categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, eligible federal agencies, and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it places clear limits on foreign involvement: non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations and foreign institutions) cannot apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply. However, foreign components as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement are allowed, meaning a U.S.-based applicant may include certain foreign activities under NIH rules even though the primary applicant must be domestic.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary opportunity using the cooperative agreement funding instrument, which usually indicates substantial NIH involvement in program stewardship and coordination expectations compared with a standard grant. The listing includes multiple CFDA numbers, reflecting the multi-Institute/Center nature of ECHO and its cross-cutting relevance to health, environment, and child development priorities. The original closing date shown for this specific announcement was November 21, 2022, and the public record provided does not specify an award ceiling or the expected number of awards. Overall, the opportunity is best understood as funding a central operations and coordination organization that enables ECHO’s cohort-wide research activities to function smoothly and consistently across many sites and cores, rather than funding independent hypothesis-driven clinical trial work.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, environment, food and nutrition, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Coordinating Center (U2C) (Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.113, 93.121, 93.213, 93.233, 93.242, 93.273, 93.279, 93.307, 93.310, 93.350, 93.361, 93.837, 93.838, 93.839, 93.840, 93.847, 93.853, 93.855, 93.865, 93.866, 93.879.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-08-30.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-11-21. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA OD 22 021

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