Optimizing the Management and Outcomes for Cancer Survivors Transitioning to Follow-up Care (R01 Clinical Trial Required) | RFA CA 19 035

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA CA 19 035

The National Cancer Institute (NCI), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), released this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to improve what happens to adults after they finish active cancer treatment and move into follow-up care. The central idea is that survivorship is not just a clinical “handoff” from oncology to primary care or other specialties; it is a vulnerable transition where gaps in coordination, unclear responsibility, inconsistent surveillance, and uneven access to supportive services can directly affect long-term health, quality of life, and even timely detection of recurrence or late effects. This FOA is designed to push the field beyond describing the problem and toward developing and rigorously testing practical interventions that health care providers and health systems can use to make follow-up care work better for adult cancer survivors.

A defining feature of this opportunity is its focus on provider-level and system-level interventions rather than solely patient education or individual behavior change. NCI is explicitly looking for innovative strategies that strengthen collaboration between oncology and non-oncology providers (for example, primary care clinicians, specialists managing comorbidities, rehabilitation, mental health, and other supportive services). The expectation is that applicants will not only design these interventions but also test them in a clinical trial framework, consistent with the “R01 Clinical Trial Required” designation. In other words, the funded work should generate strong evidence about whether a proposed approach actually improves survivorship follow-up care and outcomes, not just whether it is feasible or acceptable.

The FOA also places heavy emphasis on equity and real-world relevance. High priority is given to interventions tailored for or tested in racial and ethnic minority survivors and medically underserved adult survivors, as well as survivors receiving care in community settings. This priority reflects a recognition that survivorship care is often unevenly delivered: community practices may have fewer resources and less integrated infrastructure than large academic cancer centers, and underserved populations may face additional barriers such as limited access to specialty care, transportation challenges, fragmented insurance coverage, language barriers, and greater comorbidity burden. Projects that directly address these realities, and that can realistically be adopted or scaled outside elite settings, align closely with what NCI is signaling it wants to fund.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary grant using the NIH R01 mechanism under the FOA number RFA-CA-19-035. The program is categorized under Education and Health and is associated with CFDA numbers 93.353, 93.393, and 93.399. The listed award ceiling is $500,000, and NCI anticipated making about six awards. The FOA was created on March 27, 2019, with an original closing date of June 28, 2019. Even though those dates indicate this specific announcement is historical, the content still clearly illustrates NCI’s priorities in survivorship care research: coordinated care models, system redesign, and measurable improvements in follow-up outcomes during the transition out of oncology-led treatment.

Eligibility is broad and includes many organization types that could realistically build and test health system interventions. Eligible applicants include state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; Native American tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding universities when specified); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; small businesses; and other entities as described in the FOA’s additional eligibility language. This breadth is consistent with the intervention-focused nature of the program, since meaningful survivorship follow-up improvements often require partnerships across academic centers, community clinics, health systems, payers, and community-based organizations.

In practical terms, a competitive application under this FOA would be expected to identify a specific survivorship transition problem (such as unclear surveillance responsibility, poor information flow from oncology to primary care, inadequate management of late effects, or lack of guideline-concordant follow-up), propose a provider/system intervention to address it (for example, shared-care models, structured survivorship care planning integrated into the EHR, team-based care pathways, referral coordination tools, decision support, navigation models, or new workflows that define roles across oncology and primary care), and then test that intervention using a robust clinical trial design. The overall purpose is to produce actionable evidence that health care systems can use to improve outcomes for adult cancer survivors as they move into the follow-up phase, with particular attention to groups and settings where gaps in care are most persistent.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Optimizing the Management and Outcomes for Cancer Survivors Transitioning to Follow-up Care (R01 Clinical Trial Required)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.353, 93.393, 93.399.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 27, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 28, 2019. (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 $500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 6 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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