REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS


2022-23 Weill Awards for Clinical Neuroscience Research

Project Award Amount: $150,000


RFP Now Closed

Thank you to all who submitted proposals. Award decisions will be announced by the end of June 2022.

Award Description

UCSF Weill Institute Awards seek to fuel innovation in neuroscience by fostering high need, high reward, translational or clinical research through funding of highly meritorious research projects and supporting high-potential neuroscience researchers.

The target for the 2022–23 Weill Awards is to support investigators working on neuroscience challenges directly related to human disease-based research. Projects that directly involve patients, clinical data, or that utilize tissues, cells, fluids, or other human biospecimens will be eligible. Areas of focus may include projects related to therapeutics, diagnostics, imaging technology, biomarker discovery/validation, and computational methods, as well as clinical quality and patient safety research. We seek to support creative research projects that have high potential to advance understanding of brain disease.

Each project will have a maximum budget of $150K over 2 years, and projects are not renewable. A short interim progress report is required at the end of each year, and a final progress report at the end of the funding period, identifying any resulting publications and/or additional funding obtained to support the expanded/extended projects. Resulting publications should acknowledge the UCSF Weill Institute for Neurosciences.

 

Who's Eligible:

This program is open to all faculty in any series. Recipients should meet these eligibility criteria at the time of award. For faculty who are not in a defined academic senate series, we request a brief statement from the department chair confirming that space and other resources necessary to carry out the proposed project will be provided for the duration of the grant.

Not Eligible:

Trainees, including postdoctoral fellows, residents, and non-faculty research staff.


Criteria for Evaluation of Applications

  • Projects should address important problems with high relevance to clinical or translational neuroscience and human health.
  • The proposal, if successful, should lead to tangible benefit to patients.
  • Faculty who have not previously received funding through earlier Weill Award cycles will be given special consideration.
  • Faculty from all UCSF campuses are strongly encouraged to apply, as we seek to support a diverse community of clinical neuroscientists, and broad range of projects.

Projects that involve human subjects will require human research committee approval before funding is released.

The UCSF Weill Institute is committed to funding a diverse community of investigators. We encourage participation and proposals from members of underrepresented groups.


Selection of Awardees

Funding decisions will be based on scientific review score and alignment of the proposal to the evaluation criteria, as judged by a review committee. All applicants will be notified of final decisions, but to ensure a timely and streamlined process, further review information will not be provided.


 

To Apply

Please prepare your proposal following the provided instructions and submit as a single/consolidated PDF file. Include all items in the order listed. Do not include form fields in your PDF document.


RFP Now Closed

Thank you to all who submitted proposals. Award decisions will be announced by the end of June 2022.

Project Proposal Instructions

Proposal Length: Maximum 2 pages, including figures and tables, and excluding literature cited, budget, and biosketches.
Format Requirements: Arial font; 11 pt; minimum 0.5 inch for all margins; no appendices; include page numbers.

Proposals should contain the following:

1. Principal Investigator Name(s): Proposals may include up to two principal investigators (PI). If funded, PI one will be the primary contact for the award set-up and management. If the proposal has multiple PIs, both PI one and PI two need to meet the eligibility criteria listed above. Only ONE application per PI is permitted (as either PI one or PI two).

2. Project Title

3. Lay Summary (a few sentences that describe your proposal in lay terms)

4. Project Proposal:

  • Aims
  • Background and Significance
  • Preliminary Studies (if applicable)
  • Experimental Design and Methods 
  • Literature cited (maximum of 10 references; excluded from proposal page limit)

5. Budget (excluded from proposal page limit): $150,000 maximum per proposal; please round up to the nearest thousand (e.g., instead of $139,869 list $140,000). Salary support for the PI (or PI one + PI two) should not exceed 10% of the total budget. 

6. NIH Biosketch(es) (maximum 6 pages per biosketch; excluded from proposal page limit): Include an NIH-style biosketch for each PI, as well as any additional key personnel such as Co-Investigator(s) (if applicable).

Submit your proposal via the following link:
https://airtable.com/shrTwiep5FRYULQuV