Funding Opportunities

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) intends to release a Phased Large Awards for Comparative Effectiveness Research (PLACER) PCORI Funding Announcement (PFA) on April 1, 2026, seeking to fund high-impact patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) projects. This preannouncement provides potential applicants additional time to identify collaborators; obtain patient and stakeholder input on potential studies; and develop responsive, high-quality applications. PCORI seeks to fund patient-centered CER comparing two or more alternatives, each of which has robust evidence of efficacy and is in current use. If efficacy is not well established, then widespread use must be documented. PCORI is interested in research that aims to fill pertinent evidence gaps representing decisional dilemmas for patients, caregivers, clinicians, policymakers and other healthcare system stakeholders, with a goal of generating evidence that helps patients and members of the broader health and healthcare community make informed decisions about their health care and health outcomes. Clinical interventions (such as medications, diagnostic tests or procedures) and delivery system interventions (such as workforce, technologies or healthcare service delivery designs) are appropriate for these studies. To be considered responsive, applications must propose research that meets the distinctive requirements of this PFA.  Investigators must propose an individual-level or cluster-randomized controlled trial of significant size and scope. This funding announcement anticipates that proposed research projects will require two phases of funding. The initial phase of funding supports a distinct feasibility phase intended for infrastructure establishment; patient and stakeholder engagement; feasibility testing of study operations, including successfully recruiting, enrolling and randomizing participants; and study refinement where appropriate. Using the feasibility phase to establish evidence of an intervention’s efficacy or effect size is not permitted. Approval to proceed to the second phase will be contingent on achieving milestones and deliverables established for the feasibility phase.