Summary: The fiscal year 2026 (FY26) Lung Cancer Research Program (LCRP) Idea Development Award (IDA) supports conceptually innovative, high-risk/high-reward research that could lead to critical discoveries or major advancements that will accelerate progress toward eradicating deaths and suffering from lung cancer. This mechanism promotes new ideas that are in the early stages of development and have the potential to yield impactful data and new avenues of investigation. Research must address at least one of the FY26 LCRP areas of emphasis.

Distinctive Features: This FY26 LCRP IDA mechanism has a New Investigator category that is designed to allow applicants early in their faculty appointments to compete for funding separately from established investigators. Preliminary data to support the feasibility of the research hypotheses and research approaches are required; however, these data do not necessarily need to be derived from studies of lung cancer.