The CTS Pilot Awards Program is designed to support innovative, early-stage research. This program aims to catalyze high-impact projects that have the potential to translate basic discoveries into clinical applications, improve patient care, and advance personalized medicine.
Overview
The CTS Pilot Awards Program provides seed funding of up to $50,000 to support interdisciplinary translational science projects. We encourage applications from faculty at all career stages, with a focus on fostering collaborative research initiatives. Successful projects should demonstrate potential to generate preliminary data that could lead to larger, externally funded research grants.
Read the CTS Pilot Awards FAQs.
Program Details
PI/Co-I Eligibility
- Principal Investigator applicants should hold a faculty appointment or a permanent non-faculty appointment i.e., “research assistant professor” or other positions typically held by investigators from research institutes and centers who are eligible to apply for investigator-initiated awards from NIH.
- Only eligible individuals from BCM or UH can serve as the project PI.
- Multiple-PI teams are eligible, with the understanding that all MPIs share equal responsibility for the conduct and direction of the project and all MPIs individually fulfill the PI eligibility requirement described above. Only one PI can be designated as the “Contact PI,” and this person will serve as the primary contact between the research team and the CTS Pilot Award administration.
- Co-Investigators (Co-Is) must be from BCM or the UH and at the level of a postdoctoral fellow or higher (i.e., Assistant Professor, permanent research staff, or faculty).
PI/Co-I Support
- PIs must include between 1–5% salary effort (up to the NIH cap). Other faculty who are contributors to the project must also budget effort commensurate with their role in the project, with a minimum of 1% salary effort per contributor.
Applications should be submitted as PDF files using the CTPH Grants Management System. Completed applications are due by 5 p.m. on October 30. Applicants will be notified by email in early January 2025 regarding the status of their application.
Full guidelines are included in the Request for Applications.
The applications section are:
- Abstract (250 words maximum).
- Lay Summary (1 paragraph).
- Discussion of the CTS problem to be addressed (PDF, 2-page limit, 1.5-line spacing, font no smaller than Arial 11 pt, and 0.5-inch margins)
- Research Team (PDF, 1-page limit, 1.5-line spacing, font no smaller than Arial 11 pt, and 0.5-inch margins).
- Research Plan (PDF, 4-page limit, including tables and figures. 1.5-line spacing, font no smaller than Arial 11 pt, and 0.5-inch margins. Cited references do not count towards the 4-page limit).
- Cited References: (PDF, no page limit).
- Plan for Future Funding (PDF, 1-page limit, 1.5-line spacing, font no smaller than Arial 11 pt, and 0.5-in margins).
- Study Timeline (PDF, 1-page limit).
- Budget: The total direct project budget should not exceed $50,000. The time period for the budget is January 1–July 31, 2025.
- Budget Justification (PDF, no page limit, 1.5-line spacing, font no smaller than Arial 11 pt, and 0.5-inch margins).
- Protection of Human and/or Animal Subjects (PDF, No page limit, 1.5-line spacing, font no smaller than Arial 11 pt, and 0.5-inch margins).
- Biosketches: NIH-format (Combine in a single PDF, 5-page limit for each investigator).
- Letter(s) if applicable: Letters can be included if (i) they outline work that will be done for the project by a consultant (do not include letters from co-PIs, co-investigators) or (ii) clearly state a commitment of resources required for the project’s success.
- RFA release date: September 23, 2024
- Informational webinar: September 24, 2024 10:00-10:45 am
- Submission portal open: October 1, 2024
- Application due date: October 30, 2024
- Grant review completed: November 21, 2024
- Grant review panel: December 1, 2024
- Regulatory/NCATS approval deadline: December 4-30, 2024
- Final funding decisions announced: January 2025
- Funding period: January-July 31, 2025
Questions?
If you are unsure whether your proposed project is considered translational science, please email a brief description how you believe the proposal addresses translational science (up to 30 lines of text) to ctph@bcm.edu by October 10, 2024. Where possible, we will make suggestions to help the align the proposed project with the goals of the program.