OCRA Global Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium AI Accelerator Grant 2027: A $1 Million, Three-Year Award for AI-Driven Ovarian Cancer Research

OCRA Global Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium AI Accelerator Grant 2027: A $1 Million, Three-Year Award for AI-Driven Ovarian Cancer Research

The 2027 AI Accelerator Grant is a focused research award from the Global Ovarian Cancer Research Consortium (GOCRC), administered and managed by the Ovarian Cancer Research Alliance (OCRA). The consortium brings together OCRA in the United States, Ovarian Cancer Action in the United Kingdom, Ovarian Cancer Canada, and the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation in Australia. Its purpose is to fund international, data-intensive collaborations that use artificial intelligence, including machine learning, to advance ovarian cancer research and improve patient outcomes.

The 2027 round is not accepting new general Letters of Intent. OCRA marked the LOI deadline as passed on June 23, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. ET. Applicants who submitted an LOI are expected to receive status notifications and, where selected, access to the full-proposal stage in August 2026. The full-proposal deadline is September 10, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. ET, and it is by invitation only. A researcher who did not submit an LOI should not treat the September date as an open application opportunity.

The award provides up to $1,000,000 USD in total support over three years to the institution of the Principal Investigator. The 2027 RFP also describes optional in-kind AWS compute support of up to $200,000 per year and $600,000 total. AWS credits are additional to the financial award, and access requires the supported work to be conducted in OCRA’s Discovery Lab Trusted Research Environment within the Community Accelerated Research Exchange.

This guide explains the current cycle, the unusually specific team requirements, the two-stage application process, and the practical preparation that would matter for a future round. It is aimed at principal investigators, computational biologists, data scientists, clinicians, and research administrators who need to decide whether the program fits their institution and collaboration.

Key Details at a Glance

The important status distinction is between the two stages. The 2027 LOI stage is closed, so new applicants cannot start an LOI through SmartSimple now. The September deadline is still relevant to teams selected after LOI review, but it is not a second chance to enter the competition. OCRA’s page lists funding notification for mid-November 2026. The RFP gives an anticipated grant start date of February 1, 2027.

What the Grant Offers

The financial award is designed for a substantial, collaborative research program rather than a short pilot. Up to $1 million is awarded over three years to the PI’s institution. The 2027 RFP states that the amount is inclusive of indirect costs at the LOI budget stage. A team therefore needs a credible multi-year plan for personnel, data work, model development, validation, research governance, and dissemination before it reaches the full proposal stage.

AWS support is an optional additional benefit, not a replacement for the grant budget. Investigators may request up to $200,000 per year, up to $600,000 in total, in cloud-based compute credits. The RFP places a condition on that support: the supported research must be conducted inside OCRA’s Discovery Lab Trusted Research Environment. Grant funds may not be used to support other computational platforms for the AWS-supported work. Teams considering the credits should therefore understand the environment, data-transfer, security, and governance implications early.

The grant is explicitly international. Its value is not limited to a model or a dataset from one centre; the RFP asks for a team able to connect expertise across the four consortium countries. Projects are also expected to deposit public or shareable data generated through the funded work into the Discovery Lab environment, subject to consent and privacy requirements. That expectation makes data stewardship part of the research design, not an administrative detail to add after selection.

Research Priorities: Where Funded Projects Focus

The consortium names several areas that can help a team position its idea:

• Prevention, initiation, and early detection. Risk stratification, earlier biomarkers, and models of the earliest steps of disease are examples of questions within this area.
• The tumor ecosystem. Work may examine the tumor microenvironment, immune interactions, spatial biology, or signalling that shapes tumour growth and spread.
• Treatment resistance. Projects may seek to predict, explain, or overcome resistance to chemotherapy, targeted agents, or immunotherapy.

These are examples, not a closed list. OCRA says scientifically rigorous AI-driven ovarian cancer research intended to improve survival is eligible. AI must be part of the research method, not a passing reference. The RFP asks the LOI to identify the intended AI architecture or approach, known models or frameworks, relevant cloud services, and the concrete research application. Possible applications include imaging analysis, biomarker discovery, patient stratification, or literature synthesis, but a team must explain how its chosen method advances the stated aims.

Who Should Apply

The 2027 RFP sets a more specific bar than a general invitation to cancer researchers. This is a collaborative, team-based grant requiring at least four senior lead investigators, with representation from the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. One investigator is designated PI, and the PI may be based in any country as long as the four-country representation is present.

The PI and lead investigators must hold full-time faculty or equivalent appointments at an accredited university, medical school, public health school, or non-profit research institution. Each must hold a doctoral degree when the LOI is submitted and may not be in a training position. The team must include an AI specialist or experienced AI researcher. OCRA encourages applications led by quantitative researchers when the work has clear ovarian cancer relevance, and it strongly prefers inclusion of a clinician. Patient and public partners are also strongly encouraged, with their roles described across ideation, implementation, and knowledge translation.

Funding is limited to eligible non-profit academic and research institutions, including non-profit research hospitals, research institutes, and recognised scientific research facilities. For-profit entities, consulting companies, non-research organisations, and non-profits that do not conduct the research themselves are excluded. There are no citizenship requirements. An individual may be PI on only one LOI in the cycle, may participate in additional LOIs only in a non-PI role, and may not have another active OCRA grant when the new grant begins.

In practical terms, a credible team combines ovarian cancer or gynecologic cancer expertise, access to meaningful data, and the ability to design and validate an AI method. The country requirement makes collaboration planning especially important. Institutions should settle who will serve as PI, confirm the appointment and doctoral-degree requirements for lead investigators, and make sure data access and patient-partner roles can be described before a future LOI opens.

How the Application Works

The AI Accelerator Grant uses a two-stage process, and all submissions go through SmartSimple, OCRA’s grant management system. The first stage for this cycle is closed; the second stage is restricted to invited teams.

1. Letter of Intent (LOI). The 2027 LOI had to be submitted in English through the PI’s SmartSimple account by 5:00 p.m. ET on June 23, 2026. OCRA does not permit late submissions or extensions. The LOI required a scientific abstract of no more than 6,000 characters, an AI brief summary of no more than 200 words, a patient-involvement summary of no more than 100 words, biosketches, and an estimated total funding request up to $1,000,000 inclusive of indirect costs.
2. LOI review and invitation. OCRA and the funders review the LOIs, and only a fraction advance. The RFP says applicants are expected to be notified in early August 2026. There is no feedback process for LOIs, so teams should not assume that an unsuccessful or unsubmitted LOI can be repaired at the full-proposal stage.
3. Full Proposal (by invitation only). Selected teams receive access to the next stage through SmartSimple. The full proposal is due September 10, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. ET. It is not open to researchers who did not receive an invitation. OCRA’s page lists funding notification for mid-November 2026.

For teams that did submit an LOI, the immediate task is to monitor SmartSimple and OCRA email for the August decision and full-proposal access. OCRA recommends adding [email protected] to a safe-sender list. Technical questions about SmartSimple can be sent to that address; substantive questions are also directed through OCRA’s grant contact.

Researchers planning for a later cycle should use this published process as preparation, not as permission to submit during the closed 2027 LOI stage. OCRA runs one grant cycle each year, but future dates and requirements should be confirmed on the current OCRA page when they are published.

Timeline and Planning

The current cycle has a clear sequence:

• May 8, 2026: the 2027 LOI opened.
• June 23, 2026: the general LOI deadline passed at 5:00 p.m. ET. OCRA does not accept late submissions or extensions.
• August 2026: OCRA expects to communicate LOI decisions and open full-proposal access for selected applicants.
• September 10, 2026: invited teams must submit full proposals by 5:00 p.m. ET.
• Mid-November 2026: OCRA lists funding notification for this cycle.
• February 1, 2027: the RFP gives this as the anticipated grant start date.

For a future round, begin well before the LOI window. Confirm the four-country team, appoint a PI, identify the AI specialist, document data access and consent constraints, and decide whether AWS compute credits are appropriate. Patient and public involvement should be planned at the project-design stage. These tasks affect whether the LOI can answer OCRA’s questions clearly and whether an invited team can turn the initial concept into a workable three-year research plan.

Required Materials and What Reviewers Look For

The 2027 LOI requirements are specific. The scientific abstract covers the proposed research, aims, team, and available resources and is limited to 6,000 characters including spaces. The AI brief summary is limited to 200 words and should identify the planned architecture or approach, models or frameworks where known, cloud services, and the research application. A patient and public involvement summary is limited to 100 words; if partners are not involved, the applicant must explain why.

Biosketches are required for the PI, lead investigators, key personnel, and patient partners. The PI needs a current NIH biosketch. Lead-investigator biosketches must identify each investigator’s country and be combined into one PDF; key-personnel and patient-partner materials have their own compilation requirements. The LOI budget states the estimated total request up to $1,000,000, inclusive of indirect costs. Detailed budgets, AWS estimates, figures, references, appendices, and letters of recommendation or collaboration were not required or accepted at that stage.

An invited full proposal will require the detailed scientific and operational case. Prepare for a research plan, methods, milestones, data-management and governance details, budget justification, investigator credentials, and a fuller patient-involvement plan. Full proposals also require a Signing Official and a Financial Official in SmartSimple. OCRA recommends that PIs establish those institutional roles well before the full-proposal deadline because the Signing Official must approve the final submission.

Reviewers on a program like this are weighing several things at once:

• Scientific importance: does the project address an important ovarian cancer question and improve the prospect of better outcomes?
• Computational rigor: is the AI method appropriate, well-justified, and validated rather than included for appearance?
• Data quality and access: do you actually have, or have a credible plan to obtain, the data your model needs?
• Feasibility: can this team deliver in three years with the requested budget and the provided compute?
• Translational path: how could a positive result change screening, biology, or treatment?

Strong applications make the AI contribution concrete: what the model ingests, what it predicts or discovers, how performance is measured, how bias and uncertainty are handled, and how the result is validated against biology or outcomes. They also explain how data generated by the project can be shared within the Discovery Lab while respecting consent and privacy.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Treating AI as a buzzword. If the computational method could be removed without changing the project, the proposal is not a fit for this grant.
• Underestimating data logistics. Access agreements, harmonization, privacy, and governance take time; unresolved data plans undermine feasibility.
• Ignoring validation. A model with impressive internal metrics but no external or biological validation is a red flag for reviewers.
• Weak translational framing. Show how the work connects to prevention, the tumor ecosystem, treatment resistance, and patients.
• Missing the invitation-only structure. The full proposal cannot substitute for the closed LOI. For a future round, the LOI deserves careful work because it determines access to the final stage.
• Waiting for the deadline to build the team. Cross-country collaborations and data agreements should be in place before you draft.
• Treating AWS credits as unrestricted funding. The optional credits are tied to the Discovery Lab Trusted Research Environment and cannot simply be redirected to another computational platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much can I receive? Up to $1 million per grant over three years. The 2027 RFP also permits a request for up to $200,000 per year and $600,000 total in additional in-kind AWS compute support, subject to the Discovery Lab requirements.

Do I have to be based in the United States? No. The PI may be based in any country, but the team must include senior lead investigators representing the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia.

Can a for-profit company apply? No. Funding is limited to eligible non-profit academic and research institutions; the RFP excludes for-profit entities, consulting companies, non-research organisations, and non-profits that are not conducting the research themselves.

Does everyone submit a full proposal? No. Only teams selected after LOI review are invited. For 2027, the LOI is closed and the September 10 full-proposal deadline is not available to new applicants.

Where do I apply? Through SmartSimple, OCRA’s grant management system, linked from the official grant pages.

Is the current cycle still open? The general 2027 LOI closed June 23, 2026. Only invited applicants may submit the full proposal by September 10, 2026 at 5:00 p.m. ET. A later cycle should not be assumed until OCRA publishes it.

What should an invited team prepare? Monitor SmartSimple and OCRA email, confirm the institutional Signing Official and Financial Official, expand the LOI into a detailed research plan, and develop the budget, milestones, data-management plan, and patient-partner details required for the full proposal.

Next Steps and Official Links

If your work sits at the intersection of ovarian cancer and data-intensive AI research, first determine whether you are an invited 2027 LOI applicant. If not, there is no open submission route for this cycle. For future planning, read the current program description and RFP, confirm the four-country team and institutional eligibility, and map the research question to a clear AI method and validation plan.

• Grant programs overview: https://ocrahope.org/research/information-for-researchers/grant-programs/
• How to apply for an OCRA grant: https://ocrahope.org/research/information-for-researchers/apply-for-a-grant/
• 2027 AI Accelerator LOI RFP: https://ocrahope.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/2027-AI-Accelerator-LOI-RFP_Final.pdf
• Questions: [email protected]

Confirm all amounts, eligibility rules, and deadlines directly on OCRA’s official pages before any future application, since OCRA sets the detailed terms for each annual cycle. For the 2027 cycle, the decisive fact is simple: the LOI closed June 23, 2026, and the September 10, 2026 full proposal is invitation-only.