Northern California Institute For Research And Education, Inc.

Northern California Institute For Research And Education, Inc. (doing business as NCIRE) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit research organization that serves as a prime recipient of federal research grants focused on hypothesis-driven biomedical and clinical research in aging, neurology, cardiology, infectious disease, and veteran health outcomes. NCIRE operates almost exclusively as a federal grant recipient (76% prime awards) rather than as a federal contractor, with a portfolio dominated by National Institutes of Health grants and Defense Health Agency research awards.

NCIRE's grant work spans late-life cognitive decline, Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, cardiovascular health in aging populations, stroke prevention, mental health disorders including PTSD, infectious disease immunology, and specialized veteran health research. Representative prime grants include a $3.002 million National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute award (CFDA 93.837) for longitudinal cardiac imaging in women with HIV running through July 2030; a $2.95 million Defense Health Agency Military Medical Research and Development award (CFDA 12.420) for suvorexant augmentation therapy in veterans with PTSD and insomnia through August 2029; a $641,748 National Institute on Aging Aging Research award (CFDA 93.866) for digital recruitment and engagement strategies in the Brain Health Registry through May 2031; a $712,977 National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases award (CFDA 93.855) investigating natural killer cell response to Coccidioides through August 2027; and a $998,633 Defense Health Agency grant for midlife AD/ADRD risk factors in male and female veterans through August 2029. NCIRE also participates as a sub-recipient on collaborative NIH and VA research projects, including sub-awards from UCSF, Yale University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and University of Pennsylvania on clinical trials, imaging studies, and biomarker development initiatives.

Federal grant customer concentration runs heavily to the National Institutes of Health, with the National Institute on Aging and related NIH institutes accounting for the bulk of the prime award count. The Defense Health Agency places 25 awards (14% of the recent count) with combined potential value of $2.5 million, anchoring NCIRE's veteran-focused research. The Department of the Army Medical Command funds an additional 14 grants at $987 thousand combined value. Across the portfolio, NIH and HHS account for the majority of funded research volume and dollars, reflecting NCIRE's role as a research-intensive organization embedded in the San Francisco VA Health Care System and the University of California, San Francisco.

Award activity has grown substantially year over year—from 6 awards in 2022 to 46 in 2024—with 26 awards reaching ultimate completion within the next twenty-four months and facing potential recompete. The organization's combined obligated dollars ($1.32 billion) far exceed the combined potential value ($11.6 million) across the source portfolio, reflecting the reality that many grants listed carry residual funding from multi-year awards already in execution. NCIRE maintains deep institutional affiliation to the San Francisco VA Health Care System and University of California, San Francisco, leveraging those relationships to conduct federally funded research on veteran and population health outcomes, with work performed in San Francisco, California.