DoW Alzheimers Transforming Care Award

The Alzheimer’s Research Program Transforming Care Award is administered by the Defense Health Agency Contracting Activity through the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs as part of the Alzheimer’s Research Program. The program was created to support high-impact Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease related dementia research that addresses the needs of Service Members, Veterans, their families, caregivers, and the broader public. The fiscal year award opportunity focuses specifically on transforming dementia care through solution-oriented clinical research and clinical trials. The program emphasizes interventions, innovations, technologies, and practical solutions that improve quality of life, reduce caregiver burden, and strengthen support systems for individuals living with dementia and their care partners. The funding opportunity strongly encourages projects that address health disparities and studies that can be translated between civilian and military populations. The award supports robust and non-incremental clinical research or clinical trials that evaluate critical areas in dementia care. Clinical trials are permitted, but projects focused solely on pharmacological interventions are specifically excluded. Animal studies are not allowed. Applicants are required to provide preliminary data demonstrating feasibility and support for the proposed endpoints. The program also requires applicants to develop a draft research manual that documents procedures, methodologies, evaluation approaches, operational considerations, and data collection processes to improve consistency and replicability. Community collaboration is a major requirement for studies prospectively enrolling human subjects, and applicants are expected to incorporate meaningful partnerships with individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias, caregivers, advocacy groups, and community organizations. The award encourages the use of existing cohorts and datasets, including cohorts involving individuals age 65 or younger. The Defense Health Agency expects to allocate approximately $5.4 million to support approximately three awards. Applications submitted under the single Principal Investigator option may request up to $1.6 million in total costs over a maximum four-year period of performance. Applications using the Career Initiation or Transition Partnership Option may request up to $1.9 million in combined total costs across both Principal Investigator awards. Under the partnership option, separate awards are issued to each participating organization. The funding announcement permits costs associated with multi-institutional collaboration travel, one scientific or technical meeting per year, data sharing activities, community collaboration activities, participant reimbursement and compensation, and clinical trial costs. Animal costs and excessive conference travel are not allowable. Cost sharing is not required. Eligible applicants include domestic and foreign organizations, nonprofit and for-profit entities, public and private institutions, and intramural or extramural Department of War organizations. Independent investigators affiliated with eligible organizations may serve as Principal Investigators regardless of citizenship or nationality. The Career Initiation or Transition Partnership Option is intended to support emerging or transitioning investigators who either have limited years in an independent research position or are new to military health, traumatic brain injury, or Alzheimer’s disease related fields. The same investigator may participate on no more than four applications under this funding mechanism. Applications involving multidisciplinary collaborations among academia, industry, the Department of War, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and other federal agencies are strongly encouraged. The submission process includes both a required pre-application and an invited full application. Pre-applications must be submitted through eBRAP and include a two-page preproposal narrative, references, biographical sketches, abbreviations list, and disclosures regarding other submissions. Full applications require numerous components, including a fifteen-page project narrative, supporting documentation, technical and lay abstracts, statement of work, impact statement, post-award progression plan, community collaboration plan when applicable, study population recruitment and safety plans for human subjects research, budget forms, key personnel profiles, and additional institutional documentation. Extramural organizations submit full applications through Grants.gov, while intramural Department of War organizations submit through eBRAP. Applicants must maintain active registrations in SAM.gov, Grants.gov, and eBRAP prior to submission. Applications are evaluated using a two-tier review process consisting of peer review and programmatic review. Peer reviewers assess impact, research strategy and feasibility, recruitment and retention plans, ethical considerations, statistical analysis, progression planning, research team qualifications, and community collaboration integration. Programmatic reviewers then evaluate the applications for alignment with Alzheimer’s Research Program priorities, portfolio balance, relative impact, and benefit to end users including military relevance. Applications proposing duplicate projects, classified research, animal studies, or pharmacological-only trials may be administratively withdrawn. Successful applicants are expected to comply with reporting requirements including annual progress reports, revised research manual submissions, enrollment reporting, and potential participation in In-Progress Review meetings during years two through four. The current funding cycle includes a pre-application deadline of June 22, 2026 and a full application deadline of September 24, 2026. Invitations for full application submission are expected on August 10, 2026, with peer review scheduled for December 2026 and programmatic review anticipated in February 2027. Awards are expected to be issued no later than September 30, 2027. Applicants may contact the eBRAP Help Desk at help@eBRAP.org or 301-682-5507 for submission assistance and Grants.gov support at support@grants.gov or 800-518-4726 for registration and Workspace support.

Demonstrate strong preliminary data and a clear non-incremental advance over existing dementia care approaches; Emphasize community-informed research design and equitable collaboration with caregivers or individuals living with dementia; Provide a detailed and feasible pathway to clinical implementation and care transformation; Ensure statistical rigor including power analysis and recruitment feasibility; Clearly explain military relevance or transferability between civilian and military populations