Pilot Grant Program for Clinical and Translational Studies

PILOTS Grant Application Form

  1. Funding Details
    1. $25,000 for a funding period starting in April 2025 through March 2026
    2. No University of Iowa faculty salary or meeting travel will be supported
    3. It is expected that pilot projects lead to grant or contract submissions
    4. Publications that result from the pilot grant program, in whole or in part, must cite the NIH CTSA program grant UM1TR004403.
  2. We require investigators to declare in the Letter of Intent what Translational Science Principle their project addresses. View definitions and examples of the Translational Science Principles here.
  3. Pilot projects must focus on advancing translational science (and/or removing the barriers). Translational research projects per se (e.g. projects focused on a particular target or disease, but do not build on or establish processes or principles applicable to other diseases), will not be allowed. (See the following link to learn more about translational science vs translational research)
    • Projects are intended to:
    1. Explore innovative new leads or new directions
    • Stimulate team approaches that incorporate less traditional researchers and
    • Provide initial support to establish proof of concept for translational science. Projects must be feasible within the proposed timeframe, have high methodological and scientific quality, and answer important translational science questions.
  4. Team composition: Each research team will be required to focus aspects of the project on community engagement and involve a community stakeholder or researcher in their team. Teams are encouraged to reach out to Heather Reisinger (heather-reisinger@uiowa.edu) as they plan their community engagement activities. 
  5. ICTS Services (Mobile Technology Lab; Clinical Research Trials Office; Biomedical Informatics; Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design; Qualitative Core; Community Engagement; etc.) used for this project are available at no cost to awardees. Use of an ICTS Core must be stated in your Letter of Intent and the core must be contacted prior to submitting a full application. 

Application

  1. ​Two-stage application
    1. Submit a one-page letter of intent (LOI) with individual faculty NIH or NSF Biosketches due October18, 2024. LOIs should be sent to Jamie Thrams (jamie-thrams@uiowa.edu).
    2. Applicants will be notified by November 4, 2024 if they have been selected to submit a full proposal.
    3. Selected applicants will be asked to submit a full proposal through InfoReady Review (https://uiowa.infoready4.com) by January 6, 2025. The proposal should be limited to 5 pages.
      1. Pilot Grant Application (available on this page above)
      2. Please include
        1. IRB application (or IACUC application if applicable) unique to the study of the pilot application (Clinical Trial studies should start their IRB application as early as possible to meet this requirement)
        2. Abstracts/Relevance (maximum of 250 words/2,000 characters, including spaces)
        3. Specific Aims
        4. Background and Preliminary Data
        5. Research Plan
        6. Budget & Justification

 

Awardees will be notified by February 14, 2025.

More information to apply can be found at https://icts.uiowa.edu/investigators/pilot-grant-programs

Questions can be directed to Jamie Thrams (jamie-thrams@uiowa.edu)

 

Resources on Translational Science

 

For Investigators