Category: Grants

In Good Company: the 2018 Optimal Aging Challenge, is a global innovation challenge focused on identifying breakthrough ideas, products or services to alleviate isolation and loneliness among older adults. The Challenge will continue through September 28, and winners chosen in December.

Why is this Challenge important?

When we engage older people to enable them to continue to live, work and volunteer in their communities we all benefit from their energy, experience and contributions.

The risk for social isolation and loneliness grows as we experience changes associated with getting older. Research by the AARP Foundation shows that a combination of societal barriers and life transitions increase social isolation, which is worsened by poor health and lack of access to public spaces and transportation. Self-reported loneliness induces stress and dysphoria, and AARP notes that prolonged isolation has a mortality effect equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, alongside other impacts such as increased risk for cardiovascular disease, depression, dementia and disability.

For further details, visit the challenge website at http://bit.ly/InGoodCompanyChallenge.

The Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Foundation, through its Special Initiatives program,  is offering one-year grants of up to $50,000 in support of innovative initiatives in Massachusetts designed to expand access to health care for low-income consumers and that complement the objectives of the foundation’s other grant programs. Preference will be given to programs focused on protecting the availability of coverage and care for the most vulnerable people in the state and/or that support linkages between social services and health care that help to improve outcomes for residents. Grants are one-time and non-renewable.

To be eligible, applicants must be based in Massachusetts and be tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code. Priority will be given to organizations that primarily serve low-income and vulnerable people, particularly individuals receiving MassHealth or other subsidized health insurance. The foundation does not fund for-profit companies, religious organizations, or individuals.

Letters of Intent must be received no later than August 17, 2018.

See the BCBS Massachusetts Foundation website for complete program guidelines and application instructions.

Part of the High-Risk, High-Reward Research program, the award supports individuals or teams proposing transformative projects that are inherently risky and untested but have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms and may require very large budgets.

• Open to all career stages
• Open to individuals or teams
• No preliminary data required
• No limits to budget
• Effort commensurate to project needs
• Clinical research proposals should follow NIH institute-specific guidelines

Full details of the announcement can be found here.

Deadline: April 17, 2018
Budget: Up to $15,000
Eligibility: All full-time faculty and staff
Notification of award: Week of May 28, 2018

The Public Service Endowment Grants (PSEG) are intended to enhance the mission of UMass Amherst as a Carnegie-classified “Engaged Research University.”  It is an internal University source of funds set aside to deliver public services through research and special projects. For the purposes of this program, public service will be defined as “having to do with the outreach of the University to society at large, extending the research and engagement resources of the campus to individuals and groups who are not part of the academic community while bringing an academic institution’s special competence to bear on the solution of society’s problems.  It can take place on or off campus and can be related to either the governmental or private sectors of our national life. The emphasis on public service is in converting knowledge into readily usable forms for immediate applications.”

Proposals should focus on collaborative partnerships and interactions with the off-campus community (or communities) and related scholarship for the mutual benefit, exchange, exploration, and application of knowledge and resources. Projects that will lead to competitive proposals for extramural support will be given the highest priority. The use of this non-renewable “seed” money award should leverage campus and community resources to solve a problem or build capacity at the university and/or in the community. Projects should create opportunity for sustained engagement after PSEG funding is expended.

You can view more information, including the Request for Proposals, here.

The UMass Amherst Public Service Endowment Grant 2018 competition is now open, with a submission deadline of April 17, 2018.  These are internal grants of up to $15,000 for special projects that will increase the capacity of the campus for mutually beneficial engaged scholarship and outreach. Please note that applications are accepted from all sectors of the campus community, and all full-time faculty and staff are eligible to apply.

The program website http://www.umass.edu/research/public-service-endowment-grant provides the request for proposals, submission instructions and forms, and examples of past projects.

This is to announce the opening of the Armstrong Fund for Science Grant competition for 2018. The Armstrong Fund is a prestigious internal competition for seed funding to encourage bold new ideas in science and engineering research in UMA priority research areas. The fund is made possible by UMA supporters John and Elizabeth Armstrong, whose ideas also provide the vision for the award.  The selection of the recipients is made by the STEM deans and their delegates.

Funding is available for up to $40,000 total over two years (or $20,000 for one year).

Submissions require a short, three-page proposal, budget, and CVs.  Please visit the Armstrong Fund for Science website for the RFP, application forms, and instructions. The RFP is also attached to this email.

The grant application process is as follows:

• Submission deadline: Proposals are due by 5 pm on February 1, 2018
• Awards announced: By March 20, 2018
• Funds disbursed: July or August, 2018

Everyone doing STEM research is eligible.  Junior faculty are encouraged to apply, and in fact, have been the most frequent recipients of the award. The award is also open to senior faculty, provided they are pursuing a direction that represents a significant change in focus for their research (and their application should explain in what way it is a departure for them). Team proposals are encouraged and potential for industry engagement is desirable. The list of prior awardees is on the Armstrong Fund for Science website.

Contact Mary Green with any questions about the fund and the application process at mkgreen@umass.edu or 545-8641.

The Patrick and Catherine Weldon Donaghue Medical Research Foundation is accepting Letters of Intent from researchers for projects with the potential to improve the quality of care/quality of life for the elderly in nursing homes or other care facilities.

Continue reading “Donaghue Foundation Invites LOIs for Projects to Improve Senior Health in Care Facilities”

The UManage Center for the Science of Symptom Self-Management in the College of Nursing is now accepting letters of intent for one award for its 2018-19 Pilot Project Grant Program.

E-mail Notice of Intent to Apply:  January 12, 2018 

Letter/E-mail of Intent (LOI) Deadline (2 pages max): January 17, 2018

Questions should be directed to Annette Wysocki, PhD, RN, FAAN, Pilot Project Core Director, UManage Center: annettew@nursing.umass.edu or Ian Cooke:  icooke@umass.edu or Cynthia Jacelon, PhD, RN-BC, CRRN, FGSA, FAAN: Principal Investigator, UManage Center: UMass Center for Building the Science of Symptom Self-Management (NIH/NINR 1P20NR016599): jacelon@nursing.umass.edu

Continue reading “UManage Center Call for Letters of Intent – 2018-19 Pilot Project Grant”

Apply now to be a 2018-19 Family Research Scholar with the UMass Amherst Center for Research on Families.

Deadline: January 29, 2017

Family Research Scholars receive a course release to participate in a year-long interdisciplinary faculty seminar that includes:

• Ongoing presentations and discussions of the Scholars’ developing proposals
• Concrete instruction on the details of successful proposal submission and the resources of the University that support proposal submission
• Individualized consultation from a methodologist specializing in statistical analyses of complex multi-level datasets, as well as information on relevant funding agencies
• Funding to enable scholars to bring national experts to campus for individual consultation and to present a public research talk as part of the Tay Gavin Erickson lecture series.

To apply, click here.

For more information, contact: Gisele Litalien, CRF Associate Director, at glitalien@umass.edu or (413) 545-2335.

NIH and NINR have recently released calls for both R01 Research Project Grants and R21 Exploratory/Developmental Research Grants for “mHealth Tools for Individuals with Chronic Conditions to Promote Effective Patient-Provider Communication, Adherence to Treatment and Self-Management.”

The purpose of this initiative is to stimulate research utilizing Mobile Health (mHealth) tools aimed at the improvement of effective patient–provider communication, adherence to treatment and self-management of chronic diseases. With the rapid expansion of cellular networks and substantial advancements in Smartphone technologies, it is now possible – and affordable – to transmit patient data digitally from remote areas to specialists in urban areas, receive real-time feedback, and capture that consultation in a database. These mHealth tools, therefore, may facilitate more timely and effective patient-provider communication through education communication around goal setting, treatment reminders, feedback on patient progress, and may improve health outcomes. This announcement encourages the development and testing of interventions utilizing mHealth technologies. There is also an interest in studying mHealth technologies in underserved populations.

Details can be found found through the following links:

R01 call

R21 call