Tier I awards fund the building of the community and capacity necessary to later develop a patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER) project addressing the issue of interest to the awardee.

The Tier I awards are for individuals or groups who are not usual candidates for research funding. This program is intended to support those individuals and groups with critically important ideas who may not have other opportunities for research funding. In order to qualify for Tier I funding, you must demonstrate success in a past community-building project. The project doesn’t have to have been health-related. You need to explain how you engaged the community and formed partnerships to achieve your goal and how, by building relationships and forming partnerships, you were able to overcome any obstacles.

Read more about the Pipeline to Proposal Awards Initiative.