These grants afford teams comprised of UNC and Coastal investigators with up to $500,000 over 2-3 years. The aim is to build sustainable and high impact research teams focused on Coastal health concerns and populations. Full details are available in the RFA.

View the Research Capacity Building Grants RFA (pdf)

Submission Due Date

February 14, 2024, 5PM EST

View the town hall webinar (Sep 2023) to learn more:

Up to three research travel awards are available to reimburse up to $1,650 each for investigators interested in presenting health equity research relevant to Southeastern North Carolina to an academic or community outlet.

To be eligible, applicants must be employed by either by Novant Health and located in the coastal region, defined as the New Hanover Region and includes Bladen, Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, and Pender counties OR employed by the UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine. Applicants must also have a research project regarding health equity in southeastern North Carolina accepted for presentation at an academic or health conference, or community event. Eligible events may occur in any location, but the research presentation to be funded must center on southeastern North Carolina.

View the Health Equity Research Presentation Travel Awards RFA (pdf)

Submission Due Date

Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until all funds have been awarded, or until June 1, 2024, whichever occurs first.

The Health Equity Research Training Awards are designed to support current or potential researchers (faculty, their students or research staff) in growing relevant research skills necessary for conducting effective health equity research.

Applicants should identify a specific training opportunity and demonstrate how skills from that opportunity will allow them to conduct high-level health equity research with relevance to the Southeastern region of North Carolina. Awards will provide up to $500 to reimburse online trainings, and up to $1,650 for in-person trainings.

View the Health Equity Research Training Awards RFA (pdf)

Submission Due Date

Applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis until all funds have been awarded, or until June 1, 2024, whichever occurs first.

Despite notable improvements gained because of technological advancements in medicine, there continues to be an alarming disproportionate burden of illness among historically marginalized populations.

The purpose of this RFA is to facilitate research that promotes health equity for groups who have traditionally been under-represented or excluded in health research or disproportionately affected by illness and lack of access to medical care (e.g., people who live in rural areas, populations with low socioeconomic status; people with disabilities; people with mental illness and substance use disorder; older adults; the LGBTQ community; African American, Native American, Asian American, and Latinx populations). We are seeking projects that can be completed within 12 months and have strong potential to inform subsequent grant applications to the NIH or other external funding agencies.

Projects should promote research to understand and improve relevant community health challenges, such as health equity; social determinants of health; and disparities in maternal health, mental health, opioid addiction, cancer, heart disease, stroke, and COVID-19. Awards will provide up to $50,000 in funding for a 12-month project period.

Researchers eligible to serve as Principal Investigators (PI)/site leads must be permanent faculty whose employment appointments allow them to serve as PI on externally sponsored research projects. Applications must include one PI from UNC-SOM and a PI from NH-NHRMC/Novant Health Medical Group Coastal Region who will serve jointly as Co-PIs for this initiative. The RAC may be able to assist potential PIs in identifying collaborators, upon request.

As this is a pilot funding opportunity, it is desirable that funded work can serve as a catalyst for submitting future research grants to foundations, the National Institutes of Health, and other funding agencies.

Cancer investigators are particularly encouraged to develop collaborative projects in response to these RFAs. Interested cancer investigators should complete this brief form (pdf) and email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. In future rounds of this pilot program, a specific RFA focused on cancer research will be issued.

View the Health Equity RFA (pdf)

Submission Due Date

March 12, 2024

Despite notable improvements gained because of technological advancements in medicine, there remains a need to advance medicine through clinical research. Historically, limited resources have been available to execute well-designed clinical trials or conduct impactful research in the community setting. While academic medical centers often have the requisite infrastructure to execute clinical trials effectively, community hospitals have generally lacked investigator support, research coordinators, data managers, software and other tools necessary to manage trials in an ethical, safe, quality and compliant manner, thereby limiting access to clinical research opportunities for patients in the region.

The purpose of this RFA is to build capacity and facilitate interventional clinical research for patients in the region. Other clinically directed research may also qualify as detailed below. We are seeking projects that can be initiated within 3 months of the award and have a strong potential to impact health through clinical research in the region. It is desirable that initial work might be expanded over time to inform subsequent grant applications to the NIH or other external funding agencies.

For the 2022/2023 round of funding, the RAC focused efforts on promoting clinical research to understand and improve relevant community health challenges such as cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, primary care, COVID-19, women and children’s health, substance use disorder and more. Awards provide up to $50,000 in funding for a 12-month project period.

Cancer investigators are particularly encouraged to develop collaborative projects in response to these RFAs. Interested cancer investigators should complete this brief form (pdf) and email it to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. In future rounds of this pilot program, a specific RFA focused on cancer research will be issued.

View the Clinical Research RFA (pdf)

Submission Due Date

March 12, 2024