Overview

RFP: Advancing the National Swine Health Strategy Through Targeted Disease Elimination and Prevention

National Pork Board completed an industry-wide survey and convened an advisory group of producer leaders to identify swine health goals and priorities for the National Swine Health Strategy (NSHS), a producer-led initiative to improve the health of the U.S. Swine herd. The goals and priorities are listed below:

  1. Reduce the impact of domestic diseases
    • PRRSV Elimination
    • PEDV Elimination
    • Reduce the spread of pathogens in the U.S. Pork industry
  2. Keep foreign and emerging diseases out
    • Foreign animal disease (FAD) prevention & preparedness
    • Monitoring & early detection of emerging diseases

The Swine Disease Research Task force has developed a request for proposals to address each priority. The NPB task force is comprised of producers, veterinarians and subject matter experts. The purpose of the task force is to identify knowledge gaps related to the NSHS priorities and to fund research proposals that directly align with those priorities.

What Valuable Research Question Does this RFP Address?

This RFP focuses on knowledge gaps related to reducing the impact of domestic diseases and preventing incursions of foreign animal diseases.

Research Priorities

Reduce the impact of domestic diseases.

  1. PRRSV Elimination
    • Identify management practices that promote PRRSV diversity, including the use of MLV and LVI tools.
    • Quantify the association between immunological interventions (e.g., MLV and LVI) and PRRSV diversity, including a better understanding of point mutations and recombination occurrence.
    • Compare and contrast biosecurity protocols of farms, identifying practices that correlate with a reduced frequency of disease outbreaks. A comparison of biosecurity protocols with and without air filtration must be included.
    • Develop methods for reducing the amount of viral load and virus transmission in a geographical region.
    • Identify PRRSV management strategies that enhance the pig’s ability to rapidly clear the virus and/or decrease shedding (both at the individual and whole herd levels), while reducing morbidity and mortality and improving performance.
    • Identify strategies that result in decreased time to elimination of PRRSV during a herd closure.
    • Development of effective PRRSV vaccine targets for future vaccine development or novel immunity modulator.
    • Develop best practices guidelines for PRRSV field immunization and exposure to decrease the impact on production and reduce the potential for more virulent viral lineages in the field. Consideration of MLV, LVI, and killed vaccines as tools is encouraged.
    • Develop sensitive and specific pen-side tests for rapid field results to improve response strategies such as interventions, treatments, or pig movements. This tool should also be DIVA-compatible where applicable.
    • Develop a method (e.g., specific production parameters) or tool (testing method) to identify high-viral shedding sows during PRRSV herd closures in order to assist in production decisions at the beginning of a PRRSV break.
    • Evaluate and identify manure management risk factors and mitigation tactics. With special attention to the call outs below:
    • PRRSV epidemiology, including the causal mechanism, before, during, and after manure management practices, considering cofactors such as stress (e.g., chilling), ventilation, and subclinical infections on PRRSV outbreaks.
    • Development of evidence-based methods that reduce the risk of PRRSV breaks in conjunction with manure handling
    • Evaluate strategies and methods for shortening time to baseline production and time to negative for sow farm virus elimination after a PRRSV break (e.g. batch vs. weekly farrowing, wean down strategies, test and removal etc).
  2. PEDV Elimination
    • Evaluate risk of pathogen spread due to the practices related to recycled/dirty water.
    • Evaluate current practices for manure handling and technological needs to reduce the risk of pathogen spread.
  3. Reduce the Spread of Pathogens in the U.S. Pork Industry
    • Identify barriers for implementation and development of methods to address and encourage biosecurity compliance in relation to human behavior.
    • Perform a literature review to identify knowledge gaps related to US transport biosecurity.
    • Perform a risk analysis of the current infrastructure of truck washes in the U.S.
    • Determine what is needed to mitigate identified risks
    • Perform an economic impact analysis of the current truck wash infrastructure.
    • Perform a literature review identifying best practices for mortality management (rendering, etc.) to reduce the spread of disease, including aerosol transmission.
    • Analyze common farm layout/infrastructures and identify those that increase biosecurity ease-of-use and compliance.
    • Identify and evaluate new technologies that claim to reduce the need to do high-risk activities (e.g. shared labor, common contact points, etc.).
    • Work with task force to develop biocontainment ask.
  4. Keep Foreign and Emerging Diseases Out
    • Foreign animal disease (FAD) prevention & preparedness.
    • Investigate the utility of a rapid pen-side test for Senecavirus A (SVA).

Criteria for Approval

This RFP focuses on the pathogen specific priorities identified by the National Swine Health Strategy. Submitters may submit proposals focused on one priority or multiple if the study design effectively addresses more than one. Submitters must identify which priority they are addressing in their proposal.

Proposals must directly address the research priority, the subsequent objective, and the knowledge gaps identified above. Submitters must submit proposals that are well written, include a defined budget, and feature a robust study design that clearly addresses the research priorities. Submitters may submit multiple proposals. NPB will not pre-approve proposals, but encourages submitters to provide justification for how the work will impact producers.

Evaluation

Individual projects contained within the proposal must meet the same standards of scientific rigor and statistical validity as typical National Pork Board research grants. Poorly written proposals that fail to demonstrate how researchers will address their selected research priority will not be considered. Proposals with editorial comments and revisions will not be considered.

A group comprised of pork producers, veterinarians, allied industry representatives and subject matter experts will evaluate each proposal for its approach to desired outcomes, application to and impact on the pork production industry.

Due Date

Research proposals for this RFP will be reviewed throughout the year 2026.

The first review will take place on April 10, 2026. Please refer to this page to receive updates on the next review time period.

Funding Amount

There is $1 million available for this RFP. Budgets for submitted proposals should not exceed this amount. This budget is intended for the entire RFP. Multiple projects will be funded from this $1 million budget. This should not be interpreted as a singular budget for one proposal.

Applicants should not interpret the maximum allowable amount as a suggestion to expand their anticipated budget to this level. Reasonable budgets necessary to achieve desired outcomes are in favor of the applicant.

Budgets that are not commensurate with the proposed work or poorly justified will likely negatively impact the proposal’s evaluation. Indirect costs are not allowed; however, it is allowable to request salary and fringe benefit support for graduate students.

Proposal Format Requirements

Submissions for this RFP should follow the National Pork Board’s standard instructions, format and requirements. Please ensure your proposal format includes all required information, specifically under the budget section. 

Additionally, submissions must include 3 to 5 bullet points on how the proposal will directly impact producers. These bullet points can be included between the Summary and Budget sections.

Submission Instructions

Proposal ready? All proposals must be submitted via the Pork Checkoff Research Portal.

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Questions?

For questions, please contact:

Marisa Rotolo, DVM, PHD
Director, Swine Health
National Pork Board
[email protected]