Key Dates

First Available Due Date: April 11, 2023

Purpose

This notice announces the availability of supplemental funds from the Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS) to NIH-managed or NIH-majority-funded projects that may benefit from using the cloud. The purpose of this announcement is to explore and test potential opportunities for leveraging cloud solutions to enhance existing NIH activities. Projects already using cloud may apply to explore and test cloud capabilities not yet leveraged. This initiative is aligned with the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science, which describes actions aimed at building a better data infrastructure and a modernized data ecosystem.

Background

The NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science seeks to enable a highly efficient and effective biomedical and behavioral research data ecosystem to meet the increasing data management and analysis needs of NIH researchers in an era when the data volume and complexity from NIH-supported research are increasing rapidly. In particular, NIH seeks to support its researchers to obtain the needed computational capabilities including the access to latest hardware and software. Large scale cloud computing platforms (see NIST SP 800-145 for a definition of Cloud Computing) provide on-demand storage and computing power as well as various software and access to specialized hardware such as GPUs, making big-data research more accessible to the individual biomedical or behavioral researcher.

The potential impact and benefits from cloud computing can be difficult to realize for multiple reasons, many of which are disproportionately felt by under-resourced institutions and communities, and this understanding is consistent with the discussion in recent NIH Virtual Workshop on Broadening Cloud Computing Usage in Biomedical Research and responses from the RFI: NIH Programs to Increase Access to Cloud Computing to Diverse Biomedical Research Institutions. Challenges include a lack of resources for testing cloud-based solutions; uncertainty about costs associated with specific jobs and use cases in a cloud environment; and uncertainty about which workflows would benefit most from the cloud.

Research Objective

The goal of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to encourage and enable researchers to explore and test opportunities to enhance their research projects by incorporating cloud capabilities. Projects already using cloud may apply to explore and test cloud capabilities not yet leveraged. Projects supported through this NOSI should result in improved understanding of how to best use cloud resources. Specifically, this opportunity is to support proof-of-concept explorations, measurements, or other tests of the suitability and feasibility of using cloud resources to enhance NIH-supported research projects. Proposed projects should result in a better understanding of which use cases are cost effective or enable significant enhancements to strategic data science goals such as facilitating new discoveries through access to modern computing and storage platforms at scale; broadening and diversifying participation in NIH research; facilitating the interoperability of NIH data, for example, by enabling multi-cloud or cross-cloud architectures; enhancing existing projects by utilizing new cloud technologies; or improving the computational and cost efficiencies of research. Applicants should consider the expertise needed for the proposed work and incorporate new partners, as needed.

Applications in response to this NOSI are strongly encouraged to include the following information:

1. A description of the research project that will be explored and tested in the cloud environment.
2. A description of the cloud solution, which includes but not limited to the cloud services, the cloud service providers (CSPs), and the cloud architecture; and a description of the whole solution if any non-cloud specific software and non-cloud hardware is utilized. Applications may include a diagram(s) for the cloud and/or whole solution architecture.
3. How the cloud solution will be leveraged.
4. An assessment of the potential impact of cloud solutions on the project if shown to be successful.
5. A plan to test and evaluate the impact of cloud solutions with respect to explicitly stated aims, what metrics will be used.
6. Personnel and their expertise to carry out the proposed work, including collaborators with relevant cloud skills if needed.
7. Timeline and milestones to carry out the proposed work in this supplement funding period.

These supplements may be used to support a variety of activities including, but not limited to, the following:

1. Assessing the feasibility and cost-effectiveness of establishing a cloud instance of an existing on-premises project; or of running on-prem jobs or workflows in the cloud.
2. Assessing the feasibility of hybrid solutions that make use of both on-prem and cloud resources.
3. Testing the feasibility of porting existing research projects, or parts of projects, to new hardware, using cloud services.
4. Exploring the benefits of shared computational environments or scaling of environments using cloud.
5. Exploring potential efficiencies or computational benefits of running workflows, or parts of workflows, in the cloud.
6. Exploring options that avoid or reduce data download/egress costs by carrying out data analysis in the cloud.

Awardees should be willing to participate in virtual meetings organized by NIH.

Applications that are not appropriate and out of scope for this NOSI include:

• Projects with no potential benefit from cloud resources.
• Projects that do not include a way to measure or assess the suitability of cloud resources for particular aims. Projects that are unlikely to result in improved understanding of how to best use cloud resources.
• Projects focused on hardening existing research software. (Please see the FAQ for other funding opportunities to support this type of project.)
• Projects that need additional documents such as IT security certificate and/or data regulatory approval and/or other policy approval in order to conduct the proposed work after the application submission.
• Proposals that require more than one year to conduct the proposed scope of work.
• Proposals that do not explicitly meet all the requirements stated elsewhere in this NOSI.
• Proposals that are out of scope of the parent award.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Fenglou Mao

Office of Data Science Strategy (ODSS)
Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives
Office of the Director
Telephone: 301-451-9389
cloudsupport@nih.gov"

Source and more information: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/not-od-23-070.html