The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Helping to End Addiction Long-term® (HEAL) Initiative

The Helping to End Addiction Long-term® Initiative, or NIH HEAL Initiative®, is an NIH-wide effort to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis. Almost every NIH Institute and Center is accelerating research to address this public health emergency from all angles.
The public health crisis of opioid misuse, addiction, and overdose in America continues to evolve rapidly and overlaps with other significant public health challenges, including untreated chronic pain and mental illness.
The NIH HEAL Initiative is using an all-hands-on-deck approach to address these challenges. The initiative brings together scientists, community members, the private sector, and multiple levels of government – all sharply focused on ending the opioid crisis.

The Initiative is advancing research to reduce the risks of opioid use and improve pain management, thereby reducing reliance on opioids. NINDS is the lead Institute for pain research at NIH and co-manages the NIH HEAL Initiative with the National Institute on Drug Abuse. NINDS also leads the Executive Committee of the NIH Pain Consortium whose mission includes improving the treatment of a variety of pain conditions. NINDS will focus its efforts within the NIH HEAL Initiative on developing non-addictive pain treatments that effectively address both acute and chronic pain conditions for which opioids are ineffective.

Public, private, -profit, or nonprofit agencies (including State and local government agencies), eligible Federal agencies, universities, colleges, hospitals, and academic or research institutions may apply for research grants. SBIR grants can be awarded only to domestic small businesses, and STTR grants can be awarded only to domestic small businesses which "partner" with a research institution in cooperative research and development. An applicant for individual predoctoral fellowship support must be enrolled in a research doctoral degree program by the proposed activation date of the fellowship. A postdoctoral applicant must have received a Ph.D., Psy.D., M.D., D.D.S., Sc.D., D.N.S., D.O., D.S.W., or equivalent degree from an accredited institution to be eligible for an individual postdoctoral fellowship. All research training awards are made to appropriate domestic research centers, medical schools, departments of psychiatry, non-medical academic departments, psychiatric hospitals or hospitals with psychiatric services, community mental health centers, and biomedical research institutes on behalf of individuals who need the opportunity to realize research potential. Except for the NIH Pathway to Independence (PI) Award (K99/R00), the individuals must be citizens or nationals of the United States or have been lawfully admitted for permanent residence. The NIH Pathway to Independence (PI) Award (K99/R00) is open to both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens. Individuals must qualify by scholastic degree and previous training and/or experience.

All applications are evaluated for scientific and technical merit by an appropriate scientific peer review panel. Applications other than fellowships must also be reviewed by the Council of the awarding Institute. All competitive applications compete for available funds on the basis of scientific and technical merit, program relevance, and program balance. All SBIR and STTR applications receiving a priority score compete for set-aside funds on the basis of scientific and technical merit and commercial potential of the proposed research, program relevance, and program balance among the areas of research.