RFA-DK-27-126: Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases - Fostering the AdvanceMent of an Interactive Learning communitY - Coordinating Center (KUH-FAMILY) (U24 - Clinical Trials Not Allowed)

RFA-DK-27-126: Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases - Fostering the AdvanceMent of an Interactive Learning communitY - Coordinating Center (KUH-FAMILY) (U24 - Clinical Trials Not Allowed)

Status of this opportunity

This is a historical reference entry. The official Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) set a single new-application deadline of July 1, 2026, with submissions due by 5:00 PM in the applicant organization’s local time. It also says that no late applications would be accepted and gives an expiration date of July 2, 2026. At the current review, that submission window has closed. The official record does not announce a replacement deadline or a later cycle, so this page does not invent one and should not be read as an invitation to submit now.

The notice was posted on May 20, 2026, and the earliest submission date was June 1, 2026. The later dates in the NOFO—scientific merit review in November 2026, advisory council review in January 2027, and an earliest start date in April 2027—describe the expected review and award schedule for applications that were submitted on time. They are not new application deadlines.

Key details

The primary official record is the Grants.gov opportunity page. The full announcement identifies NIH as the participating organization and NIDDK as the NIH component. The title uses unusual capitalization in the program’s official name—“AdvanceMent” and “communitY”—so this page retains that styling while correcting the missing “Coordinating Center” wording from the earlier entry.

What KUH-FAMILY was designed to do

KUH-FAMILY was not a conventional project grant for one laboratory’s disease-specific experiment. NIDDK sought one coordinating center to connect training and career-development programs serving researchers in kidney, urologic, and hematologic mission areas. The NOFO describes a national community spanning career stages, with trainees at the center and mentors, program leaders, and other supporters around them.

The coordinating center had three central responsibilities. First, it would create and sustain an active national peer-to-peer and near-peer community. That community was intended to include trainees and investigators connected to several KUH-supported mechanisms, including TL1 trainees, R25 undergraduates, F and K awardees, and people supported through their mentors’ research awards. Second, it would expand access to career-development and professional-development resources, including resources generated through the Kidney, Urology and Hematology Research-Training Network (KUHR-TN). Third, it would provide administrative support for KUHR-TN and R25 activities, including meetings, evaluation work, and the Opportunity Pool.

The center would work through a Steering Committee. The NOFO says that committee would include the coordinating-center PD(s)/PI(s), representatives from currently active KUH-supported U2C-TL1 and R25 awards, and NIDDK Project Scientist(s). This governance model is important: the awardee would operate as a collaborative hub with substantial NIH programmatic involvement, not as an independent research unit with limited reporting to the sponsor.

The planned community infrastructure included a national website or web portal. Examples in the announcement include interactive communication tools, mentoring and networking opportunities, career-path information, professional-development materials, information about training and job opportunities, and ways for researchers to connect across educational and geographic backgrounds. The center would also coordinate mentor training and serve as a liaison to other KUH-supported programs and scientific consortia where appropriate.

Funding and project design

The funding figures require careful reading. NIDDK intended to commit approximately $1,535,000 in FY 2027 to support one coordinating center. That is an agency commitment estimate, not a guaranteed payment or a promise that every applicant would receive the same amount. The application budget was anticipated to be approximately $800,000 in direct costs per year, excluding the Opportunity Pool. Applicants could request $200,000 or more each year for the pool, and the NOFO says the pool’s costs include facilities and administration for the center and its subawardees. Applicants were told not to calculate F&A on the pool set-aside itself, though the announcement provides a specific rule for the first $25,000 of each pool subaward.

The maximum project period was five years. The budget therefore needed to account for a sustained operating center: leadership effort, coordination staff, web or portal development and maintenance, evaluation, travel to annual KUHR-TN and R25 meetings, meeting administration, and the procedures needed to announce, review, distribute, and track Opportunity Pool awards. The notice specifically required each PD/PI to devote at least 2.4 person-months, or 20 percent effort, per year. Multiple-PD/PI applications needed at least that combined minimum and a clear definition of each person’s role.

The Opportunity Pool was more than a line item. The Steering Committee would decide which activities it supported, with examples including conference travel, sabbatical travel for skills development, “on-ramps” and “re-entry paths,” and other support intended to retain researchers in KUH mission areas. A credible application needed an administrative structure for publishing requests for applications, handling submissions, arranging external non-conflicted peer review, disbursing awards, and tracking them. The notice also said the application should allow the pool to support both animal and clinical studies, even though the U24 application itself could not propose clinical trials as its own activity.

Who was eligible

The eligible-organization list was broad. It included public and private institutions of higher education; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status other than institutions of higher education; small businesses and other for-profit organizations; state, county, city or township, and special district governments; federally recognized and other Native American tribal governments; eligible federal agencies; U.S. territories or possessions; independent school districts; public and Indian housing authorities; Native American tribal organizations other than federally recognized tribal governments; faith-based or community-based organizations; and regional organizations.

That broad list did not mean every organization would be a strong coordinating-center candidate. The PD/PI did not need a kidney, urologic, or hematologic research background, but the NOFO required demonstrated commitment and accomplishments related to training and career development. The leadership and key personnel were expected to bring coordination and communication expertise, along with experience assessing and evaluating biomedical research training and mentoring activities. Applicants also needed the institutional capacity to manage a national collaborative program, a formal Steering Committee, trainee-facing services, and federal award administration.

Foreign organizations and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations were not eligible to apply. The NOFO allowed foreign components as defined by NIH policy, but it stated that applications involving foreign subawards or subcontracts would be deemed noncompliant and not considered for funding. Unfunded international collaboration, foreign consultants, and procurement from foreign vendors were not automatically barred by that language. This is materially narrower than the earlier page’s suggestion that foreign organizations could participate through subawards or scientific collaborations.

Application requirements and submission steps

Although the cycle is closed, the following steps describe what an eligible applicant had to do for this specific NOFO:

1. Confirm organizational and investigator eligibility. The applicant organization needed active registrations in the System for Award Management, eRA Commons, and Grants.gov. The organization needed a UEI, and each PD/PI needed an eRA Commons account and a linked ORCID ID. Registrations had to be complete before submission; the notice warns that registration can take six weeks or more, and that registration delays are not a valid reason for a late application.

2. Choose an electronic submission route. Applicants had to access the opportunity-specific forms through NIH ASSIST, an institutional system-to-system solution, or Grants.gov Workspace. eRA Commons was used to track submissions where applicable. Paper applications were not accepted.

3. Build the required federal application package. The application had to follow the NIH Research Instructions in the How to Apply - Application Guide, together with the program-specific instructions in RFA-DK-27-126. The package included the SF424(R&R) components, senior and key person information, budget materials, the PHS 398 Cover Page Supplement, and the PHS 398 Research Plan. All page limits and formatting requirements in the guide applied unless this NOFO stated otherwise.

4. Describe the three program aims. The Research Plan needed to explain a national approach to community building, enhanced career development, and administrative support. It needed to show how trainees would help plan and execute KUH-FAMILY activities, and it needed to document the applicant institution’s accomplishments in disseminating training approaches and administering collaborative programs over the previous five years.

5. Make the operating model concrete. A competitive package needed a practical plan for the website or portal, peer and near-peer networking, mentor development, liaison work, annual meetings, surveys or other evaluation, Steering Committee support, and Opportunity Pool administration. The budget needed to match the actual staffing and infrastructure required. The PD/PI effort minimum and any multiple-PD/PI roles needed to be explicit.

6. Complete compliance and sharing materials. A Data Management and Sharing Plan was required for NIH-funded or conducted research that would generate scientific data. Human-subjects, animal, resource-sharing, and other applicable sections had to follow the NIH guide and the NOFO’s review requirements. The application could not propose clinical trials, and any international monetary subaward arrangement would have created a compliance problem under this notice.

7. Submit by the fixed deadline. All applications had to arrive by 5:00 PM local time on July 1, 2026. NIH encouraged early submission so applicants could correct errors identified during electronic processing. The notice expressly said that late applications would not be accepted. That deadline has passed, so these instructions are useful for understanding the archived cycle rather than for making a new submission now.

Review and program contacts

Applications were to receive scientific and technical merit review, followed by a second level of review by the National Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Advisory Council for applications recommended for funding. Reviewers would consider the likelihood that the proposed center could exert a sustained and meaningful influence on the relevant research workforce and community. The applicant’s ability to coordinate people and programs, assess needs, maintain reliable communications, and turn shared resources into useful career-development support was therefore central to the proposal.

The NOFO lists the Division of Kidney, Urologic, and Hematologic Diseases at NIDDK as the scientific/research contact, with NIDDK_KUH@nih.gov. The financial/grants-management contact is the NIDDK Grants Management Branch at NIDDKGMBManagementTeam@niddk.nih.gov. These contacts can help clarify the disposition of the completed cycle or whether a future related announcement is planned, but the official RFA-DK-27-126 record itself does not provide a later application date.

Archive note

This page keeps 2026-07-01 in the deadline field because it is the actual closing date of the published cycle. historicalReference = true identifies the entry as an archive record and prevents a closed opportunity from appearing to have a live application window. There is no verified basis for replacing the date with rolling, a guessed future date, or a sentence about a possible next round. Readers considering a similar KUH workforce or coordinating-center proposal should use the official Grants.gov record and NIDDK contacts to confirm whether NIH has issued a successor notice.