DRC P&F 2020 Grant Announcement

As part of the mission of our UCSD/UCLA Diabetes Research Center (DRC) grant, the Pilot and Feasibility grant program will support grantees at approximately $40,000-50,000 direct costs (with additional ~55% indirect costs) in 2019.

The DRC P&F mechanism will fund innovative new projects that will explore the feasibility of novel testable concepts and enhance the endocrine/diabetes research scope within the institutions. A special emphasis on promoting promising junior faculty involved with diabetes research is key to the UCSD/UCLA P&F mission. It is expected that P&F studies will generate preliminary data that will be used by these investigators in diabetes/endocrinology-related R01 applications in the years following their award.

The DRC is also pleased to partner with the CTSIs at UCLA, Cedars and UCSD to specifically support clinical and/or translational research relevant to diabetes. The DRC strongly encourages submission of pilot and feasibility proposals in this area.

Failure to meet the formatting requirements will lead to an administrative disqualification of the proposal. 

The P&F grant applications should include:

(a) Face page with the title of the grant, the name, email, academic title, department, and institution of the PI, the names of additional personnel and collaborators and a 200 word abstract.

(b) Biosketches for the PI and other key personnel.

(c) The scientific proposal (5-page limit).

(d) References.

The entire grant must be submitted as a single emailed pdf file less than 2 MB in size.

If the grant includes high-resolution images, these must be reduced to meet the size requirement. Failure to provide a single pdf file or a file that is too big will result in disqualification. No budget is required, but the scope of the work should be appropriate for a 1-year project and the funds cannot be used for PI salary.

All eligible investigators must have faculty appointments at UCLA, Salk, Cedars, or UCSD, and be independent investigators. To be eligible for a P&F grant you need to be eligible to submit an R01 as a PI at the end of the one-year grant period. A joint appointment at an affiliated institution is allowed. Post-doctoral fellows may submit a grant if they provide a letter from their Chair stating that they are about to be appointed to the faculty. Investigators eligible for pilot and feasibility funding generally will be expected to fall into three categories:

(Category 1) New investigators without current or past non-mentored NIH research support as a principal investigator (current or past support from other sources being modest).

(Category 2) Established investigators with no previous work in diabetes that wish to apply their expertise to a problem in this area.

(Category 3) Established investigators in diabetes/endocrinology research who propose testing innovative ideas that represent clear departure from ongoing research interests.

Emphasis is placed on Category 1 applicants.

It is expected that junior faculty will be able to rely on the advice and support of a senior DRC investigators and will have a priority access to DRC Cores, including an opportunity to discuss their projects in depth with the core directors in order to receive maximum benefits from their services. Similarly, investigators with no previous experience in diabetes/endocrinology research will be expected to have a DRC collaborator. P&F grantees will be encouraged and expected to utilize DRC core resources. However, the award is given only to the designated PI and not to collaborators.

A report on each pilot and feasibility study conducted will be due at the end of the study period and an update will be requested yearly for four years after the completion of the award. These brief reports will contain professional career status at the time of the award and at the time of the report; an overview of the project including its significance and salient results; a list of resulting publications; and peer-reviewed subsequent funding in the same or related areas. Funded P&F investigators will be expected to attend the annual DRC retreats alternating between Los Angeles and La Jolla, and present the results of their work in the year immediately following their award and continue to attend the annual meetings for at least three years thereafter. Travel to these meetings can be charged to the individual P&F awards. 

After approval of the funding decisions by the DRC executive committee, funded and unfunded investigators will be notified and, when appropriate, a brief summary of the reviews will be sent to them by email (not a detailed critique). The expected activation date is 5/1/2020.