DoD Hearing Restoration Translational Research Award | W81XWH 18 HRRP TRA

Opportunity Information: Apply for W81XWH 18 HRRP TRA

The DoD Hearing Restoration Translational Research Award (FY18 HRRP TRA; Funding Opportunity Number W81XWH 18 HRRP TRA) is a Department of Defense funding opportunity designed to push hearing restoration science out of the lab and into real-world clinical use. The program sits squarely in the translational space, meaning it is meant for projects that take credible, promising findings and actively move them toward applications that can be tested, validated, and ultimately used to improve patient care. Rather than funding purely exploratory basic science, the intent is to accelerate steps that help new hearing-related discoveries become healthcare products, enabling technologies, or evidence-based practice guidelines that clinicians can actually implement.

A central theme of this opportunity is that strong translational work can start from many kinds of observations, not just traditional bench discoveries. The Department of Defense explicitly recognizes that impactful research ideas may come from laboratory breakthroughs, population-level or epidemiologic studies, or practical clinical insights such as what clinicians see in patients and even well-grounded anecdotal experience. In other words, applicants are encouraged to treat patient needs and real clinical constraints as legitimate starting points for innovation, as long as the project is structured to convert those observations into something actionable and clinically relevant.

The opportunity also emphasizes a modern view of translation as a two-way process rather than a simple pipeline from "bench to bedside." Investigators are urged not to treat translational research as a one-direction handoff where basic science finishes and clinical work begins. Instead, proposals are expected to reflect a reciprocal flow of ideas between basic and clinical science. That could mean clinical findings shaping lab experiments, lab results refining clinical study design, or iterative feedback loops where early testing informs additional mechanistic work and vice versa. Projects that build these back-and-forth connections into the research plan are described as highly encouraged, which signals that the review process is likely to favor teams and designs that genuinely integrate clinical and laboratory perspectives.

From an administrative standpoint, the award is offered by the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, through USAMRAA, and is categorized as discretionary funding under the Science and Technology and other Research and Development umbrella (CFDA 12.420). Funding instruments include both grants and cooperative agreements, which typically means applicants should be prepared for either a more standard grant relationship or a cooperative structure where the sponsor may have substantial involvement in project oversight or coordination. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, indicating that a wide range of organization types may apply, subject to any additional constraints that might appear in the full announcement. The funding listing anticipated about three awards, with an award ceiling listed as 0 in the provided data, which usually suggests that applicants should rely on the full solicitation for specific budget limits or that the ceiling was not specified in the summary record. The opportunity was created May 30, 2018, with an original closing date of November 8, 2018.

Overall, this award targets teams that can credibly demonstrate a near- to mid-term pathway to clinical impact in hearing restoration, backed by a translational plan that actively connects discovery work with clinical application. The strongest fit is research that does more than generate knowledge: it intentionally reduces the distance between an observation and a practical intervention, tool, or guideline that can change how hearing loss or auditory damage is addressed in clinical settings.

• The Department of Defense, Dept. of the Army -- USAMRAA in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "DoD Hearing Restoration Translational Research Award" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 12.420.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 30, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Nov 08, 2018. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 3 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for W81XWH 18 HRRP TRA

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