NCCIH Research Blog

Administrative supplements are one mechanism that National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) grantees can use to pursue research and bring laser focus to critical public health issues within the scope of a parent award. An administrative supplement is a noncompeting award (evaluated by National Institutes of Health staff, not peer review) that provides additional funding to a currently funded grant to meet increased costs that are within the scope of the approved project but that were unforeseen when the new or competing renewal application was awarded. NCCIH encourages current grantees to consider whether additional funding could be used to address the current crisis related to pain and opioid use disorder (OUD).

In line with the NCCIH 2016 Strategic Plan, I want to remind NCCIH grantees that our Center encourages a focus on research related to pain and/or OUD in the context of complementary and integrative health approaches. Commonly studied approaches include, but are not limited to natural products (e.g., herbal medicine, probiotics, dietary supplements, and special diets) and mind and body approaches (e.g., acupuncture, hypnosis, manual therapies, meditation, yoga, music and other art therapies, tai chi, qi gong).

Examples of topics of interest for administrative supplements include, but are not limited to:

• Basic or mechanistic studies of the complex molecular/neurologic pathways involved in pain or opioid addiction in the context of complementary and integrative health interventions.
• Pilot/exploratory clinical studies to integrate complementary and integrative health approaches with Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) for OUD prevention, recovery/rehabilitation, or pain management.
• Pilot resource/technology development projects to enhance the utilization of complementary and integrative health approaches for pain management or OUD.
• Addition of pain or OUD assessments to ongoing cohort studies for secondary data analysis.
• Assessment of sex differences or disparities in use of complementary and integrative health approaches for OUD and pain management.

Current NCCIH grantees may want to review this active funding opportunity announcement for funding administrative supplements: Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)

Interested in applying for an administrative supplement?

Contact your designated NCCIH program director (for your parent grant) right away and discuss whether your proposed work would be suitable.

Please also contact me (Yisong.Wang@nih.gov) and let me know if I can answer any questions about the use of administrative supplements.