Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) Coordinating Center (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AI 20 080

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The Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) Coordinating Center funding opportunity (RFA-AI-20-080) is a National Institutes of Health cooperative agreement (U01; clinical trial not allowed) aimed at creating a single, central hub to support and connect the broader HIPC research network. The larger HIPC program, funded under a separate solicitation, is expected to include roughly 5 to 8 multi-project U19 awards. Those U19 teams will generate large, complex datasets on human immune responses over time and across different real-world conditions, using high-throughput systems immunology methods paired with careful clinical phenotyping in well-characterized human cohorts. In other words, the U19 projects are the data-generating engines, while this U01 Coordinating Center is designed to make sure the overall consortium functions like a coherent program rather than a set of isolated projects.

The central purpose of the Coordinating Center is cross-consortium coordination of data integration, analysis, and visualization. Because HIPC projects will likely use multiple platforms and produce diverse data types (for example, multi-omic profiles, immune repertoire measurements, cellular phenotypes, and longitudinal clinical metadata), the program depends on a dedicated group to harmonize information across studies so it can be compared, combined, and interpreted consistently. The Coordinating Center is expected to enable consortium-wide analytics and provide ways to explore results visually, which is critical for extracting shared patterns and differences in immune responses across cohorts, timepoints, and conditions.

A major deliverable is the development and maintenance of a public-facing HIPC website and knowledgebase. This resource is intended to support cross-HIPC data analysis and visualization, meaning it is not just a static site but an actively maintained platform where the community can find information about the consortium, access or learn how to access datasets and associated metadata, and use tools or interfaces that help interpret and compare results. The emphasis on a knowledgebase suggests a structured repository that can capture not only raw or processed data but also standardized descriptors, documentation, and potentially curated insights that make the outputs usable by researchers beyond the original awardees. Public availability is a key theme, signaling NIH interest in ensuring that the consortiums high-value datasets and analytical outputs are discoverable and reusable.

Another core function is fostering collaboration among HIPC-funded investigators. The Coordinating Center is responsible for managing HIPC subcommittees, which typically serve as working groups focused on shared priorities such as data standards, assay harmonization, metadata requirements, analytical methods, publication practices, and resource sharing. By organizing these groups, facilitating meetings, tracking action items, and ensuring follow-through, the Coordinating Center effectively becomes the operational backbone that keeps multi-institution scientific collaboration moving forward. This coordination role matters because consortium science often succeeds or fails based on practical execution: aligning timelines, reducing duplication, resolving technical disagreements, and creating shared frameworks for analysis and dissemination.

The opportunity also includes administration of an Infrastructure and Opportunity Fund to support collaborative studies. That implies the Coordinating Center will help design and manage a mechanism for allocating targeted resources to cross-consortium efforts, such as pilot projects, add-on analyses, shared tool development, or short-term collaborations that fill gaps or accelerate high-impact deliverables. In practice, this kind of fund is often used to stimulate joint work that would not happen if each U19 operated strictly within its own budget and aims, and it can be especially useful for rapidly addressing emerging scientific needs or enabling standardization efforts.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary health funding opportunity under the U01 cooperative agreement mechanism, which generally means NIH program staff will have substantial involvement in the projects direction and coordination compared with a standard research grant. The program anticipates making one award, with an award ceiling of $1,200,000. The sponsoring agency is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through NIH. Eligibility is broad and includes many types of domestic organizations, such as public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations (with or without 501(c)(3) status), for-profit organizations (including small businesses), and various government and tribal entities.

Key dates provided for this specific posting include a creation date of February 8, 2021, and an original closing date of June 4, 2021. Even though those dates indicate the specific cycle referenced is historical, the summary of scope and responsibilities remains useful as a description of what NIH was seeking for the HIPC Coordinating Center: a single, well-resourced coordinating entity capable of integrating complex immunology datasets, providing shared analytic and visualization capabilities through a public knowledgebase, and actively managing the collaborative infrastructure that allows a multi-site, multi-project consortium to operate effectively.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Human Immunology Project Consortium (HIPC) Coordinating Center (U01 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): 93.855.
• This funding opportunity was created on Feb 08, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 04, 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 $1,200,000.00 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).

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