Coordinating Center for Exercise and Nutrition Interventions to Improve Cancer Treatment-Related Outcomes (ENICTO) in Cancer Survivors Consortium (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA CA 21 032

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA CA 21 032

The Coordinating Center for Exercise and Nutrition Interventions to Improve Cancer Treatment-Related Outcomes (ENICTO) in the Cancer Survivors Consortium is a National Cancer Institute (NCI) funding opportunity designed to create a single, centralized hub that helps multiple research teams work together more effectively. Rather than funding a site to run its own exercise or medical nutrition clinical trial, this award supports a Coordinating Center (CC) whose job is to knit together three to five separate NCI-funded U01 project sites (funded under the companion announcement RFA-CA-21-031). Those U01 sites are the ones conducting clinical trials that test exercise and medically guided nutrition interventions intended to improve outcomes related to cancer treatment in cancer survivors. The CC is essentially the operational and scientific backbone of the consortium, ensuring that the separate trials can share approaches, align where it makes sense, and generate broader insights than any one study could produce alone.

This opportunity uses a cooperative agreement mechanism (U24), which signals that NCI expects substantial programmatic involvement and active collaboration between the awardee and the federal team. The Coordinating Center is expected to contribute scientifically, not just administratively. In practice, that means helping investigators find shared research questions across studies, enabling pooled or harmonized analyses, and looking for ways to learn across diverse populations, cancer types, intervention designs, and outcome measures. A major emphasis is on cross-site coordination that can accelerate learning about how exercise and medical nutrition strategies may reduce treatment-related side effects, improve functional outcomes, and enhance overall survivorship-related health.

A central part of the CC role is data coordination and harmonization. The FOA highlights facilitating the identification and collection of common data elements across U01 sites, which is critical when multiple trials are intended to contribute to a larger consortium-level evidence base. The Coordinating Center is expected to support the development of shared datasets that can be used for pilot projects and for answering consortium-wide questions. Beyond aligning existing data, the CC is also expected to explore opportunities for novel data collection when needed, which could include adding shared measures, standardizing assessment timing, or proposing methods that make it easier to combine results across trials.

The CC is also expected to play a hands-on role in cross-site pilot projects. That includes participating in the pilots themselves and leading data analyses that draw from multiple U01 sites. These pilots can serve as a proving ground for collaborative methods, rapid hypothesis testing, feasibility assessments for future trials, or early-stage analyses that inform best practices for exercise and nutrition interventions in survivorship care. By coordinating pilot work across sites, the CC helps the consortium produce timely results and identify the most promising paths for larger, more definitive efforts.

Communication and logistics support are explicit deliverables. The Coordinating Center must provide the structure that keeps investigators aligned through regular interactions, including organizing annual in-person meetings of the U01 project teams and supporting additional virtual meetings across the consortium. This involves agenda development, documentation, follow-up, and ensuring that decisions and action items translate into real progress. Effective communication is treated as a core scientific enabler, since harmonization, cross-site analyses, and collaborative pilots depend on consistent coordination and shared understanding.

Another major responsibility is building and running a platform to monitor progress and facilitate evaluation across the U01 project sites. In practical terms, this means creating a tracking and reporting system that allows the consortium and NCI to see how each project is progressing, where challenges are emerging, and whether the overall initiative is meeting milestones. This kind of monitoring can cover recruitment and retention, adherence to intervention protocols, data completeness, timelines, dissemination plans, and cross-site collaboration metrics. The platform is meant to support continuous evaluation, not just end-of-project reporting, so problems can be identified early and addressed collaboratively.

The opportunity is offered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, through NCI. Eligible applicants are broad and include various government entities, public and private institutions of higher education, tribal governments and organizations, nonprofits (including both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), and small businesses, with additional eligibility details referenced in the full announcement. The FOA anticipates a single award (ExpectedAwards: 1) with an award ceiling of $875,000. The original posting dates indicate it was created May 3, 2021, with an original closing date of July 14, 2021. The activity falls within education and health, and is associated with CFDA numbers 93.395 and 93.399.

Finally, the announcement specifies that this is a U24 and that clinical trials are not allowed for the Coordinating Center itself. In other words, the CC is not meant to independently run an intervention trial; its value is in coordination, shared infrastructure, consortium-wide science, data alignment, progress monitoring, and the logistical and analytic support that allows the U01 trial sites to function as a coherent, productive network under the ENICTO cooperative agreement consortium.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Coordinating Center for Exercise and Nutrition Interventions to Improve Cancer Treatment-Related Outcomes (ENICTO) in Cancer Survivors Consortium (U24 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): 93.395, 93.399.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 03, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jul 14, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $875,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• 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 (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for RFA CA 21 032

[Watch] Creating a grant proposal using the step-by-step wizard inside the applicant portal: