Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Centers (P50 Clinical Trial Optional) | PAR 24 210

Opportunity Information: Apply for PAR 24 210

The Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Centers program is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity that supports P50 research centers focused on speeding up how effective mental health treatments and service improvements are developed, tested, and put into real-world practice. The core idea is to fund center-based, team-science efforts that bring together expertise from clinical research and mental health services research with fields like behavioral and social science, health information and communications technology, health systems engineering, and decision science. A key expectation is that these teams work in close partnership with stakeholders who live with mental illness or support someone who does, along with clinicians, payers, and other participants in the mental health care system. The program is oriented toward practical, high-impact studies that can change routine clinical care and help drive broader transformation in how mental health services are delivered across the United States.

The FOA emphasizes rapid development, testing, and refinement of novel and integrative approaches in three connected areas. First, it targets optimizing the effectiveness of therapeutic or preventive interventions for mental disorders within clearly defined populations, meaning applicants should specify who the intervention is intended to help and what outcomes matter most. Second, it focuses on organizing and delivering those optimized services in real-world treatment settings rather than idealized research environments, which points toward implementation in typical clinics, community mental health programs, schools, primary care settings, or other everyday care contexts. Third, it explicitly calls for continuous improvement of the quality, impact, and durability of both interventions and service delivery within diverse care systems, signaling that projects should not stop at a one-time test but should build learning-oriented methods that can sustain gains over time and across different settings and communities.

The ALACRITY Centers program is designed to create synergy across multiple parts of the mental health research ecosystem. In practice, that means the centers are expected to connect advances in clinical research (new or improved interventions), transformative health care technologies (such as digital tools, decision supports, measurement systems, telehealth approaches, or workflows enabled by health IT), and modern information science (data systems, analytics, pragmatic measurement, feedback loops), while also aligning with emerging federal and state mechanisms for structuring and financing mental health care. The overall direction is strongly translational and systems-focused: not just proving something can work, but building evidence and practical know-how for making it work reliably at scale, for the people and settings that need it.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant opportunity (Funding Instrument: Grant) with the activity category listed as Health and the CFDA number 93.242. The opportunity number is PAR-24-210, and the application due date listed is May 18, 2026. The award ceiling shown is $1,500,000, indicating the maximum award amount per the posted opportunity details. The FOA is also labeled "Clinical Trial Optional," which typically means an application may propose a clinical trial if appropriate, but it is not required; applicants can pursue other rigorous study designs that fit the center's goals, including effectiveness, implementation, services delivery, or hybrid approaches, depending on what the research questions demand.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S.-based organizations and government entities. Eligible applicants include state, county, city or township, and special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations that are not federally recognized tribal governments; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (outside of higher education); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and small businesses. The FOA also highlights additional eligible categories such as faith-based or community-based organizations and a range of minority-serving institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs), as well as regional organizations and U.S. territories or possessions. At the same time, it makes clear that non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are not eligible to apply, although foreign components may be allowed under NIH policy definitions (as outlined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement), which can matter for certain collaborations or specialized contributions while keeping the applicant organization U.S.-based.

Taken together, the ALACRITY FOA is aimed at building robust, multidisciplinary research centers that can shorten the time between research findings and better mental health care, improve how interventions perform in everyday practice, and develop systems that keep improving over time. Competitive applications will typically align with the program's practical emphasis: clearly defined populations, real-world service settings, stakeholder partnership, and methods that support ongoing learning and sustained impact across diverse care systems.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Advanced Laboratories for Accelerating the Reach and Impact of Treatments for Youth and Adults with Mental Illness (ALACRITY) Research Centers (P50 Clinical Trial Optional)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.242.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-06-20.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2026-05-18. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,500,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

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