Call for Proposals
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Description
Tackling complex problems of disease diagnosis, treatment, and care delivery often requires a multi-disciplinary approach that integrates expertise in a team format. In addition, the NIH and other large funders are increasingly supporting large team-science proposals, which often require more planning and writing time to coordinate teams across sites/disciplines and generate scientific aims with the highest potential for impact.
Therefore, the UCSF Department of Medicine will leverage its breadth and depth of research across divisions and campuses by offering grants of up to $100,000 for a period of 12 months to spur the development of new grant submissions with meaningful collaborations across disciplines and campuses. The ultimate goal of this DOM planning grant is to seed collaboration between our Department faculty members that will lead to a 2020 submission for extramural multi-disciplinary science funding. Ideal proposals should involve a team of experts that span medical disciplines as well as the spectrum of basic, translational/clinical, and/or dissemination/implementation sciences. Collaboration across the different clinical sites of the DOM (UCSF, ZSFG/SFHN, VA) is also highly encouraged. We expect to fund one project in this initial round.
Within these parameters, the funds may be used to:
- Support salary (faculty and staff with primary DOM affiliation) effort towards the assembly of the research team;
- Analyze existing data or collect small amounts of pilot data;
- Integrate databases across campuses or disciplines;
- Establish mechanisms for communication and leadership structures, and;
- Submit a final extramural grant submission, especially large grants via P and U mechanisms.
Examples of multi-disciplinary proposals may include, but are not limited to:
- Integrating metagenomic data from lung washings of HIV patients to build clinical prediction models for opportunistic infections and lung function decline
- Developing psychological frailty scores to study its correlation with medication compliance in post-transplant patients across different organs
- Utilizing single cell genomics analysis of peripheral blood mononuclear cells to identify cell-type specific changes in lupus flares
- Rigorous implementation science investigation of the adaptation, fidelity, and roll out of evidence-based practice(s) from one healthcare system to another (e.g., ZSFG to UCSF Health)
- Establishing a new team to propose new ways to evaluate a multi-level intervention involving multiple clinical divisions (e.g., post-discharge care for patients with heart failure)
Given the short duration of this grant and possible overlap with other DOM initiatives, this award is NOT intended to:
- Fund large data collection efforts
- Support the costs of publication or presentation of research results.
- Support teams with extensive previous experience publishing and submitting grants together (i.e., those with previous joint publications or grant submissions)
- Support the development of new cohorts
Eligibility
All UCSF members of the Department of Medicine faculty (with an appointment January 1, 2020 or earlier) are eligible to apply, including faculty with a secondary appointment in Medicine. Faculty members without appointments in the DOM can be part of the team, but are not eligible to receive salary support from this grant.
Criteria for Review/Evaluations of Applications
Factors to be considered in the evaluation of proposals ranked in order of importance include:
- Strong rationale for why the proposal should span across disciplines to provide a unique team-based approach to solve a problem that is relevant for human health.
- Clear milestones that will lead to an application for extramural funding.
- The innovation and significance/approach of the proposed scientific aims.
- Detailed plan for how the interdisciplinary team will interact to carry out the proposed research.
- The feasibility of the interactions and methodology proposed.
- The qualifications of the investigators.
- Extra consideration will be given to proposals that leverage faculty expertise across campuses.
Application Process
There is no letter of intent for this round. Full applications (maximum 3 pages) are due (See details below). Applications should be submitted via web form by clicking the button below. If you have questions, please click here.
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August 15, 2020 |
Program announcement |
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November 1, 2020 |
Deadline for Submission of proposal |
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December 2020 |
Applicants notified of funding decision |
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January 1, 2021 |
Funding begins |
The complete Application should contain (all in one PDF document to be uploaded via web form):
1. Biosketch: For the investigators and co-investigators, and when applicable, for the mentor, submit an NIH biosketch http://grants.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/phs398.html. As with NIH applications, applicants should use Section A (Personal Statement) to briefly describe why their experience and qualifications make them particularly well suited for their role in the project.
2. Abstract (<250 words on one page): The abstract should summarize the main goals, the importance of the proposed work, rationale for the team assembled and why that is appropriate for the problem being addressed.
3. Background, Need, and Specific Aims (~1 page)
Why is this an important proposal? What are the new programs that are being developed with this planning grant? What is the context for the need for a team-based science approach, and what makes this proposal unique in terms of datasets involved, patient population or clinical sites, variables measured/evaluated, etc.?
4. Methods and Plans (~2 pages. The total number of pages for this section combined with “Background, Need and Specific Aims” should not exceed 3 pages)
- What activities will be undertaken to establish a new team-based research endeavor?
To what funding agency and which funding mechanism(s) are you targeting for a 2020 team-based science submission, and how will this funding position your project for increased success? Describe milestones in the development of the extramural grant proposal.
- What types of existing and pilot data will be collected and/or analyzed in order to establish solid preliminary data for a future team-based science grant submission? If different data sources are being combined/leveraged, please describe the plans for data standardization across key predictor and outcome variables.
- What communication structures will be used to establish clear roles and expectations for each team members?
- For new or junior faculty, what role will mentorship play?
5. References (Does not count towards the 3 page limit).
6. Proposed budget and budget justification
Note: Application does not require current IRB approval. However, funds may not be used for studies requiring CHR approval until approval is final.
Formatting and fonts should follow NIH guidelines: Arial, Palatino Linotype or Georgia Typeface, black font color, size 11 points or larger. A symbol font may be used to insert Greek letters or characters, font size still applies.
Funding decisions will be made by a review committee with expertise in team-based science for a project start date of January 1, 2020.
Meet the Team
Program Co-Directors
Courtney Lyles, PhD is an Associate Professor in the UC
