Greetings,
We are excited to share this funding opportunity from Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The ARPA-H Emerging Health Innovators (EHI) Initiative is designed to increase access to government research funding for early-career biotech investigators and innovators, and to seed new ideas that address healthcare gaps in the United States. More information about the award can be found in the synopsis and links below. For a full list of currently open opportunities that have been announced through our office, please visit our Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.
- OSP Deadline: Not applicable at Solution Summary stage
Departments or areas may require additional time for proposal review and submission. Please discuss a timeline with your departmental or FORA grants administrator.
- Sponsor Deadline for Solution Summary: October 30, 2026 at 2:00 PM ET
- Award Amount: Up to $350,000 per year for a two year base period. A "Director's Award" of $350,000 for one additional year will be reserved for a limited number of performers who demonstrate exceptional project performance during the base period.
Indirect costs are included in the total award amount. Please discuss this with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
Program Overview
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) is soliciting proposals from early career investigators for its Emerging Health Innovators (EHI) Initiative (ISO# ARPA-H-SOL-26-150). The initiative is a mentorship program that seeks to identify and engage early-career individuals so they can learn about ARPA-H's approach to addressing gaps in health care in the United States while seeding new and innovative research ideas. The EHI program will fund innovative research proposals to develop cutting-edge biomedical, health, and community-engaged research and innovation across diverse areas of interest to ARPA-H. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice.
A Solution Summary (pre-proposal) is required to be eligible to submit a full proposal. Proposals must be led by an eligible early-career PI (within eight years of completion of their first terminal degree, on or after 01/01/2018) for research and development in a specific Topic Area (TA) as identified below. Applicants may not submit to multiple TAs and will be required to choose one TA and identify it on the Solution Summary cover sheet. Proposals must cover a 24-month base period and for all research activity. Each proposal must include a plan for an additional 12-month option period called the "Director's Award" which will be reserved for a limited number of performers who demonstrate exception project performance over the 24-month base period.
Topic Areas (TAs)
- TA 1. Precision Control of Skin Inflammation without Systemic Exposure
- TA 2. Internal Sensing and Targeted Control of Inflammation
- TA 3. Deep Brain Stimulation for Mechanistic Sleep Exploration (Deep Sleep)
- TA 4. CLEAR-MIND — Restoring the Brain's Drainage and Immune Balance to Enable Healing After Injury
- TA 5. Host-Pathway Interventions for Neurotropic Disease (HIND)
- TA 6. Protecting Patient Data in Life Science AI
- TA 7. Engineering Defense-associated Reverse Transcriptase (DRT) for Programmable DNA Synthesis as Emerging New Medical Countermeasures (MCM) Strategy
- TA 8. Prevention of Lethal Alpha-gal Allergic Responses Caused by Tick Bites
- TA 9. SMILE (Smart Microbiome-Informed Lesion & Enamel restoration)
- TA 10. Ending Preventable Deaths from Ectopic Pregnancy Through First-Visit Diagnosis
- TA 11. Transforming the Well-Woman Exam through Objective Data
- TA 12. Innovations in Biotransport to Support Long-Term Preservation of Tissues and Organs
- TA 13. Organs-in-Action: Next-Generation Human Tissue Platforms for Longevity, Disease, and Therapy Discovery
- TA 14. Near Real-time, Non-contact Determination of Sterility in Distributed Manufacturing Systems
- TA 15. ICAT (In-Cavity Adjuvant Therapy): Implantable Systems for Local Cancer Control at the Resection Margin
- TA 16. Causally-Grounded Alignment for Clinical Generative Artificial Intelligence Tools
Eligibility Criteria
- Proposals must be led by an early-career principal investigator who is within eight (8) years, on or after 01/01/2018, after completion of their first terminal degree. Leaves of absence, post-doctoral, residency, and fellowship periods can be excluded for determination of eligibility.
- The EHI Initiative solicits single PI proposals; no co-PIs are allowed. However, PIs will be given the opportunity to propose collaborators, sub-awardees, and consultants if the nature of the proposal requires it.
- Federally Funded Research and Development Centers, University Affiliated Research Centers, National Laboratories, or other Government entities are not eligible to apply or team under the EHI program.
- PIs and proposed team members must be employed at a U.S. institution, which includes U.S. states and territories.
- PIs who have participated as a prime (project lead) on an award from an ARPA agency (e.g. DARPA, IARPA, ARPA-E, etc.) are not eligible to apply to EHI.
- The proposed concept must not have already received funding or been selected for award negotiation under another funding opportunity, whether from ARPA-H or another Government agency.
- Post-doctoral fellows/trainees and clinical trainees cannot be project leads, but it is highly encouraged to include them as support staff.
- Non-U.S. individuals employed by U.S. institutions may participate to the extent that such participants comply with any necessary nondisclosure agreements, security regulations, export control laws, and other governing statutes as applicable.
Solution Summary Materials
- Download the mandatory Attachment A: Solution Summary template.
- EHI Topic Area (Number and title).
- Solution Summary (two pages maximum, excluding the cover page):
- Title
- Define the health problem
- Explain proposed solution
- Present plans for key steps to develop solution
Additional Information and Resources
Applicants can register for free informational webinars to learn more about the EHI Initiative:
An optional EHI Initiative Proposers' Day Event (Virtual) will be held on October 13, 2026 for potential applicants to learn more about this opportunity. Advance registration is required by October 12, 2026. Download the Special Notice (ARPA-H-SN-26-161) from SAM.gov for details.
Solution Summaries will be assigned to an ARPA-H Program Manager (PM) with interests and expertise closely related to the proposer's research TA. Solution Summaries will undergo a "blind" review and will be evaluated based on the proposed solution's alignment with the selected TA, its technical merit and innovativeness, and its potential relevance and contribution to the ARPA-H Mission.
After review of Solution Summaries, ARPA-H will notify the applicant only of a determination to either "encourage" or "discourage" submission of a full proposal. No additional feedback - written or verbal - will be provided at this stage. Invited full proposals will be due February 10, 2027 at 2:00 PM ET. Awardee selection is anticipated by April 30, 2027 with a tentative award start date of June 30, 2027.
Download the full solicitation documents including Solution Summary template (ARPA-H-SOL-26-150). Application and Submission FAQs as well as EHI Administrative FAQ documents are available.
View and search for successful EHI performers in the Award Directory.
Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to FAS Research Development.
