Other NIH Collaborative Initiatives

  • The HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study
    The HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study is a large longitudinal study that will enroll around 7,500 pregnant volunteers from 25 research sites across the United States. The study will collect information about participants during pregnancy, at birth, and through early childhood. While most of the participants are expected to be recruited from the general population of pregnant people, a subset will include those whose babies were exposed during pregnancy or infancy to prescription and illicit opioids, cannabis (marijuana), stimulants, alcohol, and tobacco/nicotine; as well as participants from comparable environments who did not use substances during pregnancy. The HBCD Study is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) HEAL (Helping to End Addiction Long-termSM) Initiative, launched in April 2018 to investigate evidence-based ways to end the national opioid overdose crisis.
  • NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research
    The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research is a cooperative effort among the 15 NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices that support neuroscience research.

  • NIH Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative
    The Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative is part of a new Presidential focus aimed at revolutionizing our understanding of the human brain. By accelerating the development and application of innovative technologies, researchers will be able to produce a revolutionary new dynamic picture of the brain that, for the first time, shows how individual cells and complex neural circuits interact in both time and space. Long desired by researchers seeking new ways to treat, cure, and even prevent brain disorders, this picture will fill major gaps in our current knowledge and provide unprecedented opportunities for exploring exactly how the brain enables the human body to record, process, utilize, store, and retrieve vast quantities of information, all at the speed of thought.
  • NIH Common Fund
    The NIH Common Fund was enacted into law by Congress through the 2006 NIH Reform Act to support cross-cutting, trans-NIH programs that require participation by at least two NIH Institutes or Centers (ICs) or that would otherwise benefit from strategic planning and coordination. The requirements for the Common Fund encourage collaboration across the ICs while providing the NIH flexibility in determining priorities for Common Fund support. To date, the Common Fund has been used to support a series of short term, high impact trans-NIH programs. The Common Fund is coordinated by the Office of Strategic Coordination, one of the six offices of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) within the Office of the Director.
  • OppNet
    The mission of the NIH OppNet is to pursue opportunities for strengthening basic behavioral and social science research (b-BSSR) at the NIH while innovating beyond existing investments. Its goals are the following:
    • to advance basic behavioral and social science research through activities and initiatives that build a body of knowledge about the nature of behavior and social systems; and
    • to prioritize activities and initiatives that focus on basic mechanisms of behavior and social processes; that are relevant to the missions and public health challenges of multiple NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs); and that build upon existing NIH investments without replicating them.
  • Tobacco Regulatory Science Program (TRSP)
    Located in the NIH Office of Disease Prevention (ODP), the Tobacco Regulatory Science Program (TRSP) coordinates the trans-NIH collaborative effort with the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) to conduct research supporting its regulatory activities over tobacco products.