Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2013 		CONTACT: James F. Jorkasky
Executive Director
240-221-2905
jamesj@eyeresearch.org

DOD’s VISION TRAUMA RESEARCH PROGRAM ISSUES PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT FOR $14.5 MILLION IN AWARDS

(Washington, D.C.) Today, the Department of Defense’s (DOD) Vision Trauma Research Program (VTRP) posted on the Grants.gov Web site its Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 Program Announcements for up to $14.5 million in funding through two mechanisms:

  • Translational Research Award, funded for a period of up to three years. This mechanism expects to fund 12 awards, for a total of $12 million. The maximum for any award is $1 million, with $5 million of the total reserved for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) visual dysfunction-related research projects.

  • Hypothesis Development Award, funded for a period of two years with a maximum cost of $250,000 each. DOD expects to fund about 10 awards, totaling about $2.5 million. Of that amount, $1.5 million must be reserved for TBI-related projects.
The deadline for pre-proposal submissions for both awards is November 25, 2013. Each mechanism specifies the DOD-identified research gaps for which research should be proposed and states that proposals outside the focus areas should not be submitted.

Due to NAEVR’s advocacy, Congress funded the VTRP in FY2013 at $10 million-the highest level ever. Although subject to an eight percent sequester cut that reduced its amount to $9.2 million, the final funding amount is $14.5 million due to transfers of funding from other DOD programs, such as TBI research, as a result of the quality and responsiveness of vision researcher submissions. The vision community will have received $85 million in extramural research funding since FY2001 with the addition of these awards, $40 million of which since the VTRP was created by Congress as a distinct budget line in FY2009 DOD appropriations.

NAEVR’s 2012 Value of Defense-Related Vision Research Brochure details the history of the VTRP, presents the DOD-identified vision research gaps, and features summaries of presentations made by previous awardees in Capitol Hill briefings. It also highlights NAEVR’s 2012 Costs of Military Eye Injury study, which estimated total costs from 2000-2010 at $25.1 billion.

The National Alliance for Eye and Vision Research (NAEVR) is a 501(c)4 non-profit advocacy coalition comprised of 55 professional, consumer, and industry organizations involved in eye and vision research. Visit the Web site at www.eyeresearch.org.