New Funding Opportunities for Innovative Clinical and Translational Science at UAMS

The newly formed Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR), directed by Curtis Lowery, MD, announces a new award program available through its Novel Methodologies and Pilot Studies component. The full RFA and guidelines are available below.

The CCTR Novel Methodologies and Pilot Studies program, under the leadership of Michael Owens, PhD, and Sudhir Shah, MD, aims to 1) accelerate research innovation and progress, 2) stimulate and solidify research collaborations and 3) promote high-quality translational research. Awards are intended to support novel research studies; these awards will not support projects that are minor offshoots of ongoing research or provide bridge funding to investigators.

The awards encourage individual investigators to develop research programs that successfully compete for outside funding. The CCTR will support investigators by providing guidance, resources, and feedback.

Visit our FAQ page for answers to commonly asked questions about the CCTR Pilot Studies program.

RFAs Available Here 

The CCTR is offering three award mechanisms:

•  Investigator-initiated Pilot Award (up to $50,000) Click Here for the RFA (pdf)

• Collaborative Research Award (up to $100,000) Click Here for the RFA (pdf)

• High Impact Award (up to $150,000) Click Here for the RFA (pdf)

Grant Forms

Please note: These forms work best with Adobe Acrobat 9.0 or later. If you need the latest version of Acrobat Reader, please visit http://get.adobe.com/reader/. These forms are to be filled out, saved, and emailed along with your grant submission.

Investigator-initiated Cover Sheet

Collaborative Research Cover Sheet

High Impact Cover Sheet

Biosketch Form

Other Support Form

Detailed Budget Form

Budget Justification Form

Milestones and Evaluation Table (Word .doc)

The Investigator-initiated Pilot Award is intended to provide seed money for obtaining preliminary data or proof of concept studies for extramural grant applications. These Investigator-initiated Pilot Awards aim to support studies focused on translating laboratory and/or clinical findings into new treatments and interventions, accelerating research discovery, and improving health care.

The CRA award aims to encourage and solidify collaborations between investigators that will lead to productive translational research programs. CRA awards are designed to accelerate the translational and/or clinical potential of research findings through transdisciplinary teams of investigators, which may include community partners. CRA projects will be lead by individuals from different disciplines, such as a laboratory and clinician investigator team, or a clinician and a health services/population/ community research scientist. Awards are intended to provide seed money to generate preliminary data of a clinical and/or translational nature for future grant applications to federal agencies or national foundations.

HIA awards aim to assist investigative teams with a discovery that is ready for an initial clinical trial or a clinical development ready for expanded implementation in the community. This award targets translational projects that already receive significant research funding but require funds for specific purposes not easily covered by NIH-type grant funding. For example, manufacture and stability analyses of a therapeutic protein for phase 1 safety studies or manufacture of DNA chip with candidate biomarker sequences for diagnosis of orphan diseases in at-risk or under-represented minority populations.