The Health Disparity Research Award supports promising research ideas that have high potential to make a significant impact in eliminating disparities in prostate cancer incidence, morbidity, mortality, and survivorship.

The PCRP is interested in research that addresses all different aspects

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that contribute to health disparity in prostate cancer, including, but not limited to, social, cultural, and/or biological contributors.

Proposed research ideas should be innovative, but primary emphasis will be placed on the potential impact of the proposed work.

The key components of this award mechanism are:
· Impact:
Research supported by the Health Disparity Research Award will have the potential to make a significant impact in addressing prostate cancer health disparities.

It is expected that the results of the study will improve the understanding of and/or address factors that contribute to differences in the disease experience across populations.

The potential impact of the proposed research may be short-term or long-term, but it must be significant and progress beyond an incremental advance.

It is the responsibility of the Principal Investigator (PI) to clearly and explicitly describe the potential impact of the proposed study to an area of prostate cancer health disparity and to convey its level of significance.

Applications must include a detailed transition plan that articulates the pathway to moving the project’s findings to the next phase of development after successful completion of the award, and continue advancing the research toward making a clinical impact, even if clinical impact is not an immediate outcome.

· Innovation:
Applications are expected to include an innovative approach to addressing prostate cancer health disparities.

Research deemed innovative may represent a new paradigm, challenge current paradigms, look at existing problems from new perspectives, or exhibit other highly creative qualities.

Research that is an incremental advance upon published data is not considered innovative.

Multidisciplinary projects are especially encouraged.

The inclusion of preliminary data is encouraged but not required.

Any preliminary, unpublished data provided should be from the PI or a member(s) of the research team.

· Research Scope:
Proposed projects may include basic, translational, or clinical research, including clinical trials.

Investigators from a spectrum of disciplines, including but not limited to, basic science, engineering, bioinformatics, population science, psycho-oncology, translational research, and clinical research, are encouraged to submit applications, provided they are appropriately focused on an issue of prostate cancer health disparity.

Only small- scale (i.e., up to and including Phase II or equivalent) clinical trials are allowed.

Investigators proposing a clinical trial are highly encouraged to consider leveraging the PCRP Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium (PCCTC) (http://pcctc.org/) to facilitate the rapid initiation and completion of the trial.

Projects that incorporate population science- based approaches are particularly encouraged.

To maximize the potential for impact, investigators are strongly encouraged to incorporate the following components into their study design where appropriate:
authentication of proposed cell lines; statistical rigor of preclinical animal experiments; incorporation of experiments to assess clinical relevance and translatability of findings.

As such, the PCRP-funded Prostate Cancer Biorepository Network (PCBN) (http://www.prostatebiorepository.org) and/or the North Carolina – Louisiana Prostate Cancer Project (PCaP) (https://pcap.bioinf.unc.edu) are important resources to consider if retrospectively collected human anatomical substances or correlated data are critical to the proposed studies.

Studies utilizing data derived from large patient studies that include long-term health records, biospecimen repositories, and pre-existing research that apply state-of-the-art genomic and/or proteomic analysis, bioinformatics, and/or mathematical models to such data are also encouraged.

New Investigator category:
This award encourages research ideas from investigators in the early stages of their careers.

The New Investigator category is designed to allow applications naming PIs who are early in their faculty appointments or in the process of developing independent research careers to compete for funding separately from established investigators.

Applications naming PIs using the New Investigator category are required to include a collaborator (or collaborators) appropriate to the application who has experience in prostate cancer health disparity research, as demonstrated by a record of funding and publications.

The application must describe the potential of the collaboration(s) to be successful and how the collaboration(s) will augment the PI’s expertise to better address the research question.

All applicants for the New Investigator category must meet specific eligibility criteria, as described in Section II.C, Eligibility Information.

The proposed research must be relevant to active duty Service members, Veterans, military beneficiaries, and/or the American public.