What is meant by basic versus translational research?
Recently there has been an increased emphasis on translational research not only at NIMH but also at NIH. While this FOA endorses both basic and translational research approaches, it is worth considering how these approaches may differ.
Translational research offers the potential to directly contribute to understanding of clinical practice, whether that is diagnosis, treatment or prevention. With translational research, the connection between the subject matter and the clinical condition is immediate. Basic research, in contrast, contributes to understanding of processes in the absence of a direct link to a clinical phenomenon. This fundamental understanding might come from the study of human subjects or animal models. But, at the same time, basic research is done within some context and for biomedical research at NIMH, that context is the research mission of the Institute.
Therefore, NIMH-supported basic research, while pursuing a fundamental understanding of mechanism, across genetic, molecular, systems and behavioral levels, should establish a platform of knowledge from which translational research might then be derived. There is the expectation that basic research scientists should be aware of the platform they are creating and how it might ultimately be used to accomplish a translational research agenda. The relationship between basic and translational research is interactive and bidirectional. Most everyone agrees that basic research provides a foundation upon which direct, clinically relevant hypotheses can be tested. But it is also true that a consideration of clinical issues can serve to focus a basic research program.
from "Basic and Translational Research Opportunities in the Social Neuroscience of Mental Health (R01) [SF424 (R&R)].