CHRP Stakeholder Input Survey/Request for Information (RFI)

Background
Since its inception in July, 1983, the Universitywide AIDS Research Program (recently renamed the California HIV/AIDS Research Program) has awarded approximately $200M in research funding and nearly 2000 grants to over 50 California institutions. This funding has supported cutting-edge research, the training of new HIV/AIDS researchers, and infrastructure development. In addition, it has fostered intra- and inter-institutional research collaborations, including collaborations between researchers and community based organizations representing the diverse populations most affected by the epidemic.

Significantly, funding from CHRP has provided California researchers opportunities to explore new avenues of investigation and to generate preliminary data that has been critical for competing effectively for funds from federal and other sources. An analysis in 2006 showed that for every dollar invested by CHRP, more than 5 dollars were leveraged in support from other sources. Most of CHRP’s grant funds come from the University of California budget. The approximate total amount of U.C. funds allotted for both new and continuing awards is $8M per year. The U.C. funds support innovative pilot studies, training awards, and Community Collaborative Research Awards on an annual basis. These grants are for unsolicited investigator-driven research in any area of HIV/AIDS research (see our latest Call for Applications [PDF] for details). Also supported by the U.C. funds are the California Collaborative HIV/AIDS Research Center grants. These are four year awards that started in July, 2005 (see the awards announcement [PDF]), and resulted from an RFA issued in November, 2004 [PDF]. Finally, the U.C. funds also support grants resulting from a rapid-response mechanism to fund timely studies in HIV/AIDS health policy [PDF]. In addition, through resources provided by the California State Office of AIDS, special opportunity grants have been awarded for prevention evaluation research targeting high-priority areas. Most recently, these include opportunities from the California-Mexico AIDS Initiative [PDF], opportunities in prevention intervention development for high risk populations (African American Women [PDF] and African American/Latino MSM [PDF]), and an opportunity to study the deployment of more effective methods to detect acute infections [PDF] as a prevention strategy.

Research Field Definitions

Social/Behavioral Research
Behavioral and social sciences research has a major and explicit focus on the understanding of behavioral or social processes and/or patterns, or on the use of these processes and/or patterns to predict or influence health outcomes or health risk factors. "Behavioral" refers to overt actions; to underlying individual psychological processes such as cognition, emotion, temperament, and motivation; and to biobehavioral interactions. The term "social" encompasses sociocultural, socioeconomic, and sociodemographic status; to biosocial interactions; and to the various levels of social context from small groups to complex cultural systems and societal influences. Social and Behavioral research may focus on prevention and/or care. Research findings may have implications for policy, social changes and systems changes.

Clinical Research
Clinical research is intended to understand the effects of medical treatments or methods on disease progression, prevention or diagnosis in patients. Such research includes therapeutic interventions, preventive vaccines, and testing of new technologies, often in a clinical trial format. Clinical research is research conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens and cognitive phenomena linked to medical treatments or methods) for which an investigator (or colleague) directly interacts with the study participants. Excluded from this definition are in vitro studies that utilize human tissues that cannot be linked to a living individual.

Basic Biomedical Research
Basic biomedical research involves laboratory studies aimed at understanding the underlying mechanisms of disease at the cellular or subcellular level, or laboratory studies aimed at understanding the mechanism of action or optimization of treatments by conducting research at the cellular or subcellular level. For this purpose, basic biomedical research excludes clinical research conducted with human subjects or on material of human origin for which an investigator directly interacts with human subjects and includes in vitro studies that utilize human tissues that cannot be linked to a living individual.

Research on Systems of Prevention and Care
Research on systems of prevention and care encompasses both basic and applied studies that examine access, availability, utilization, costs, quality, delivery, organization, policy and financing related to organizations and service delivery systems. This research is intended to produce new knowledge that can be applied to improve prevention and care services for affected persons and populations.

Inquiries
Inquiries concerning this Notice may be submitted by e-mail to chrp@ucop.edu. Please use the subject line "CHRP RFI" when submitting an inquiry. CHRP is located at the University of California, Office of the President, in Oakland.