Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality March 8, 2005 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

This notice informs the research community that the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is requesting applications for competitive supplemental grants from the seven Centers for Education and Research on Therapeutics (CERTs) for which it provided funding in fiscal year 2004. The purpose of the competitive supplements is to provide funds for existing CERTs research centers to build on and to expand their research work and expertise with respect to comparative effectiveness research specifically to carry out short term projects that will address research gaps in priority subject areas identified and published pursuant to section 1013 of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA). Since the inception of the CERTs program in 1999, the CERTs research centers have gathered significant data regarding therapeutics, refined research methodologies, and developed collaborative research resources. They are therefore uniquely prepared and suited to efficiently carry out pharmaco-epidemiology and methodological studies related to comparative effectiveness research that is pertinent to developing therapeutic evidence identified as being of high interest to the Medicare, Medicaid or SCHIP programs. For this reason, this solicitation will be for a limited competition among CERTs grantees.