P20 Exploratory Center Grant Posted on November 30, 2007 Charles L. Bowden (bio) describes an NIH mechanism that links research centers.

A P20 is a mechanism that's present across the National Institutes of Health. It's an effort to say, "Well, this particular center has some existing excellence, some grants probably, in areas, for present purposes, bipolar disorder." Maybe they have a grant in genetics or about some kind of psychosocial therapy.

Could they do a better job if they link their resources? So that rather than just a study of, say, a drug treatment, they looked at ways to work across disciplines, to work across schools, so it might not just be a department of psychiatry, but your nursing school. It could be persons in family practice; we have those. It could be people in the basic science department, of pharmacology; we have those involved in ours.

The applications are difficult. First, you have to have a foundation on which to apply, which means you have to have some persons who have been successful in getting peer-reviewed funding from the National Institutes of Mental Health; not just one, but two or three. This is focused on persons early in their career paths.

The center has to already have some trainees, some people at the top level, the middle level. So you have to have not all but most of your players in place, and you have to have some kind of focus.

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