HSRC Pilot Grant Funding Opportunity

Proposal Description:

Pilot grant funding/seed funding for the Department of Surgery health services research related projects for a one year period, with potential for competitive renewal for a second year. Funding will not exceed $30,000 per year in direct costs only. Depending on merit, we may award up to 2-3 grants annually.

PURPOSE: Seed grants will fund projects to gather preliminary data which can later be converted to an R-series application or other sponsored funding opportunity with a secondary goal of encouraging collaboration across disciplines.

Eligibility Information:

A proposal related to health services research that ideally would involve multiple disciplines (e.g., clinical expert + methodologist) examining innovative solutions for issues such as healthcare quality, costs, equity/access to care or dissemination research in surgical patients. The focus can be local, regional, national, or international, but must include coinvestigators with primary appointments from a minimum of two schools.

Salary for faculty or clinical staff would not be an eligible expense for this RFA. Recommended expenses could include fees related to data acquisition, biostatistics support, effort for a research coordinator, student/trainee support, travel expenses, or publication expenses.

Requirements:

The goal of this opportunity is to obtain extramural funding. Thus, at the completion of the 1 year research period, a draft manuscript of results will be required at the end of the performance period in lieu of a formal progress report. In addition, investigators are required to submit a one-page specific aims document at the completion of the pilot project, and they will receive direct feedback from HSR leadership on their planned future proposal. Investigators will also be required to submit their preliminary results as abstracts to the annual Department of Surgery research day and the Emory Health Services Research Day meetings. Investigators will periodically be surveyed to assess progress in manuscripts and grant submissions related to the funding. The HSR Center should be acknowledged in any publications that arise from the funding.

Applicants should email the following to Larissa Teunis with the subject line: HSR Center Pilot Grant Application by January 30, 2022. Applications should generally follow NIH guidelines and formatting requirements, and include the following as one PDF document:

• Cover page: Title of project, name & affiliations of investigators, co-investigators, and any trainees involved

• Specific Aims (1 page limit)

• Research Strategy (5 page limit excluding references): To include Significance, Innovation, and Approach (applicants are encouraged to clearly specify the trajectory of the research project, and how this pilot grant would lead to a future research study and grant funding)

• References (no page limit)

• Detailed budget and budget justification

• Biosketches for PI and co-investigators

Potential Benefits:

This pilot grants program is expected to assist early stage investigators in gathering preliminary data to support applications for larger external funding and be more competitively scored. We anticipate the pilot grant will assist the department in growing its sponsored research portfolio. Established investigators could equally benefit if they desire to branch out into new areas or a related field but lack preliminary data.

Secondarily, we hope to use this as an opportunity to host study sections for grant review so investigators become more familiar with the NIH grant process. A call for reviewers for this study section will be put forth at a later date. The HSR Center will host grant writing seminars in advance of the RFA deadline Panel on national sources for HSR Funding and Practical how to guide to write different sections of an HSR Center grant to ensure investigators have the necessary tools for a successful submission. (HSR Seminar dates: TBA 2022)