Rural Residency Planning and Development Program
This program funds start-up planning and development for new accredited rural physician residency programs in specified specialties to expand rural training and increase the rural physician workforce.
⚑ Only domestic organizations are eligible; foreign organizations are ineligible. · Funds are for planning/development/start-up of accredited rural residency programs, not ongoing operating support. · Long-term sustainability is expected from Medicare, Medicaid, or other public/private sources.
Unit fits — one characterization, each unit's own rules
| IPPRA | 40 partial | portfolio topic: public_health (primary); signature methods: community engaged; social/behavioral work is minor; funds training education, not research (capped); biomedical core — IPPRA health lane is communication/crisis/policy (capped); capped at 40 (non-research funding) |
| Physical Sciences & Engineering (demo) | 25 weak | technical depth: minor; funds training education (capped) |
| Tom Love Innovation Hub | 15 none | deep-tech content; no commercialization signal |
Description
The Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) program improves and expands rural health care access. It does this by developing new, accredited, sustainable rural residency programs, including rural track programs (RTPs). Newly created rural physician residency programs increase training and ultimately practice in rural areas to address physician shortages. The RRPD program provides start-up funding to create new rural residency programs in qualifying medical specialties. Long-term sustainability funding must come from viable and stable sources, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and other public or private sources. Qualifying medical specialties are:Family medicine.Internal medicine.Preventive medicine.Psychiatry.General surgery.Obstetrics and gynecology.For this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO), rural residency programs:Are accredited physician residency programs.Train residents in clinical training sites that are physically located in a rural area as defined by HRSA"s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) for greater than 50 percent of their total time in residency.Focus on preparing physicians to practice in rural communities.
Eligibility
Only domestic organizations are eligible. "Domestic" means the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. Faith-based organizations are eligible.
Apply
View on Grants.gov → CONTACT: Health Resources and Services Administration <ruralresidency@hrsa.gov>
Proposal brief SEE AN EXAMPLE →
A one-page internal memo: fit assessment, submission requirements, document scaffold, and next steps dated back from the deadline — tailored to your project idea if you add one.
Proposal shell · HHS services agencies (SAMHSA / HRSA / CDC / ACF) conventions SEE AN HHS EXAMPLE →
Funder-faithful document skeletons — HHS services agencies (SAMHSA / HRSA / CDC / ACF)'s document set with section headings, page limits, reviewer guidance, and writing prompts; add a project idea to get [DRAFT] starter bullets. Download as .md for Word or Overleaf.
Legacy IPPRA LLM assessment (v2.0, for comparison)
18/100 · gpt-5.4-mini · 2026-07-06
This is a workforce and service-delivery program focused on creating rural physician residency slots, not a research or evaluation opportunity. The topic has some public health relevance through rural access to care, but it does not center on behavioral, policy, survey, or data-infrastructure research that IPPRA would lead. Public domestic institutions are eligible, but the fit remains limited because the NOFO funds program development and training operations rather than research.
Legacy scoring history
| 2026-07-06 | 18 | gpt-5.4-mini | This is a workforce and service-delivery program focused on creating rural physician residency slots, not a research or evaluation opportunity. The topic has some public health relevance through rural access to care, but it does not center on behavioral, policy, survey, or data-infrastructure research that IPPRA would lead. Public domestic institutions are eligible, but the fit remains limited because the NOFO funds program development and training operations rather than research. |
| 2026-07-06 | 12 | gpt-5.4-mini | This is a rural medical training and workforce development grant focused on building accredited residency programs, with little direct emphasis on the behavioral, policy, or communication research that IPPRA typically leads. IPPRA could potentially contribute ancillary evaluation or community-health research, but the opportunity is primarily clinical and operational rather than a strong fit for its portfolio. Domestic organizations including public universities are eligible, but the topic is outside IPPRA’s core research strengths. |