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The Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) is funded through the Department of Defense (DoD), via annual Congressional legislation known as the Defense Appropriations Act. For most programs, the DoD sends a multi-year budget request to Congress in the form of the President's Budget. However, dollars for the CDMRP are not considered part of the DoD's core mission, and are therefore not included in the DoD's requested budget. Rather, the dollars to fund CDMRP are added every year during the budget approval cycle by members of the House or Senate, in response to requests by consumer advocates and disease survivors.

For more information, contact the CDMRP staff, or see the FAQs on this website.

Milestone 1 (Congressional Appropriation): In this step of the CDMRP Funding Process, funds designated for specific disease-related research programs such as breast, prostate, or ovarian cancer, are added to the annual DoD budget and passed into law when the President signs the DoD Appropriations Act. The appropriated dollars are forwarded to the U.S.Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) at Fort Detrick, Maryland, where the CDMRP is located (passing through the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, and the Army Surgeon General's budget offices).

Milestone 2 (Vision Setting): Each program's Integration Panel or IP, composed of renowned experts -- scientists and clinicians, as well as disease survivors, identify the Programmatic Priorities for the year. These priorities focus on areas that will move the field of research forward, and may include gaps in knowledge of the disease, unfunded or underfunded approaches to preventing, diagnosing, treating, or curing the disease, or resources needed to conduct research (such as support for new investigators, training for future investigators, biospecimen networks with clinical databases, proteomic and/or genomic microarray databases, or other resources). To address these priorities, the IP advises the CDMRP staff on devising Program Announcements that will request applications from investigators interested in competing for awards to research the priorities.

Milestone 3 (Release of Program Announcements): Program Announcements are developed, reviewed, and when approved, released by the CDMRP staff. Program Announcements are posted on this website; linked to the U.S. Army Medical Research Acquisition Agency (USAMRAA) website; ASFI - the official business website of the federal government; the Cancer Letter; as well as on individual organizational websites.

Milestone 4 (Application Receipt): Application Receipt takes place on dates designated in each Program Announcement. Submissions are made electronically by institutions to the CDMRP EReceipt site.

Milestone 5 (Peer Review): Submitted applications are peer reviewed by program, along with other applications submitted in response to the same mechanism offered in the Program Announcements. Renowned scientists and clinicians are assigned to panels to review applications according to their individual expertise. In addition, several disease survivors sit on each peer review panel, to represent the perspectives of their community in the deliberations (see the Consumer Involvement portion of this website for more information on consumer/survivor participation.) The process of Peer Review evaluates not only the science of each submission but also the budget proposed by the investigator. To evaluate the science, each application is scored against evaluation factors identified in the Program Announcement. For example, all Prostate Cancer Genetics applications are reviewed by the Prostate Cancer Genetics panel or panels, depending on the number of submissions to the program in that particular field.

Milestone 6 (Programmatic Review): Applications undergo Programmatic Review by the IP with select additional scientists chosen for their expertise in the field. applications are evaluated in a comparison basis, against submissions in other specialty fields in order to identify applications with the greatest programmatic relevance, those that most completely address the year's Programmatic Priorities, as well as disease relevance, and innovation, among other factors.

Milestone 7 (Approval by Commanding General): Applications are prioritized by the IP into a 'Recommended for Funding' List that is forwarded by the CDMRP staff to the Commanding General, USAMRMC, for review and approval.

Milestone 8 (Negotiations): Following the General's approval, awardees are notified of their funding status (either select or non-select), and USAMRAA (e.g., Contracting) initiates negotiations with those selected for funding, leading to an award. Regulatory documents necessary for the approval of human or animal subject use in a research study are collected and reviewed at this time by the Office of Research Protections at the USMRMC.

Milestone 9 (Award Execution): Awards are managed throughout their period of performance for progress and products by the CDMRP's science officers. Notable accomplishments are showcased on the CDMRP website and also in the CDMRP Annual Report.