RSNA Announces Funding Program for MIDRC Data Contributors

OAK BROOK, Ill. (June 23, 2021) — The Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) is inviting proposals from researchers for funding support to help gather and submit data to the Medical Imaging and Data Resource Center (MIDRC), an open-source database of COVID-19 related images and clinical data.

MIDRC funding will be awarded to sites with substantial COVID-19 imaging and clinical data who are committed to contributing their data to the MIDRC. Extracting and compiling a dataset for submission to MIDRC takes time, effort and some expertise. The awards enable recipients to select, process and submit data for use by the MIDRC research community. Preference will be given to sites with data representing diverse and vulnerable patient populations and other forms of data that are underrepresented in the MIDRC dataset.

“We recognize that some health care organizations don’t have access to the resources needed to contribute data,” said Curtis Langlotz, M.D., Ph.D., RSNA board liaison for information technology and annual meeting. “Support for those sites helps assure that the MIDRC datasets reflect the full diversity of the patient population.”

Funded by the NIH National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering through a contract awarded to the University of Chicago, MIDRC is spearheaded by RSNA, the American College of Radiology and the American Association of Physicists in Medicine. The data collected for MIDRC is designed to foster research to help doctors better understand, diagnose, monitor and treat COVID-19 by offering an open access platform to collect, annotate, store and share medical images related to COVID-19.

Award recipients will receive up to $38,000 for a one- to two-year project. Funds can be applied to any institutional process or individual who can facilitate the data transfer. The funds are awarded in four payments over the project duration: 25% after project kickoff, 25% after Institutional Review Board (IRB) and privacy approval and 50% after data delivery.

The funding opportunity is open to all levels of U.S.-based investigators. Applications will be accepted until all available funding has been awarded. The application deadline for the first round of funding is July 15.

To learn more about MIDRC and to apply for funding, visit RSNA.org/Covid-19/MIDRC-funding-program.