Sunday, February 28, 2010

Funding Health Disparities Research

The University of Minnesota Medical School has issued a Request for Proposals for the 2010 Pilot Grants in Health Disparities Research. The grants are designed to encourage community-initiated research and to foster sustainable long-term collaboration between community-based organizations and academic researchers on research projects that focus on reducing and eliminating health disparities.

Priority will be given to projects that have a high likelihood of leading to future funding by NIH or other federal, state, or private funding agencies. Proposed research must address a current health disparity and proposers must submit a detailed plan for future and long term support for the research.

Funding support for the 2010 pilot grants will be provided by the University of Minnesota Clinical and Translational Science Institute and the Masonic Cancer Center. It is expected that four to five awards ranging from a minimum of $10,000 to a maximum of $25,000 will be made available.

All community-based organizations are eligible to apply but applications must address:

• A health disparity topic of importance to the community
• How collaborations across multiple community-based organizations and/or populations will be achieved
• How the research results will be used to help with health disparities in the community
• The likelihood of sustainability and/or leading to long-term support from other funding sources
• How to develop a progress report detailing achievements from previous funding through a previous grant mechanism in the past.

There are multiple steps involved in applying and the first step is to submit a letter of intent. After the letter of intent has been received, community-based organizations will be matched with researchers with similar interests at the university. Applications will then be reviewed by a committee consisting of individuals from the local community and the University of Minnesota. Full research proposals due May 6, 2010.

For more details email Michael Golden at mgolden@umn.edu or call (612) 626-9192.