The Office of Research and Graduate Education (ORGE) plans to fund a new round of Synergy Grants to facilitate team science and support development of collaborative extramural grant applications. Awards will be up to $200,000/team (18 months in duration). Teams receiving the awards are expected to advance their collaborative projects to a point that a P01/RM1 (or comparable) grant application will be submitted during or shortly after the internal support.
Teams of three or more faculty investigators (maximum of 5) are encouraged to apply. The contact PI must have a primary appointment at the HSC. One member of the team may be a WVU faculty with a primary affiliation outside of the HSC.
Please send a Letter of Intent to Apply to Mallory Weaver (Mallory.weaver@hsc.wvu.edu) by January 3, 2025. The letter should include the contact PI name, team member names, project title and a short description of the research.
Key Dates:
Jan 03, 2025 Letter of Intent Due
Jan 17, 2025 Application Due
Feb 07, 2025 Start Date
Application Guidelines:
Project Summary/Abstract (30 lines max):
The Project Summary/Abstract should provide an overview of the project, including a brief description of the faculty on the team.
Specific Aims (1 page max):
The Specific Aims should include the questions to be addressed and the goals of the application, with clear milestones and deliverables.
Research Strategy (6 pages max):
The Research Strategy should provide a high-level description of experimental design/approach that includes the hypothesis, key models and/or technologies to be used, anticipated outcomes as well as main technical challenges. Include a summary of the preliminary results if applicable.
Include the rationale of the collaboration and how the collective expertise and effort of the team members may converge for synergy to achieve the goals. Each team member’s role and responsibilities should be clearly described.
Specifically describe the milestones and deliverables of the overall project and provide a strategy for advancing it to an extramural P01/R01 application level. The targeted funding mechanism, funding agency, and submission due date should be included. Collaborative activities, such as team meetings, shared publications, and shared grant applications should be described.
Bibliography:
Provide references directly relevant to this application.
Biosketches:
Biosketches should use NIH/NSF format, with active and pending support clearly described. Provide a biosketch for each PI on the team, combined into a single PDF for upload.
IRB, IACUC and/or IBC Protocols:
All required IRB, IACUC and/or IBC protocols must be submitted before the due date. Provide the approved protocol numbers or dates of submission for review.
Budget:
Faculty or administrative staff salaries and graduate student stipends are not an allowable expense. Postdoctoral fellow or research assistants/technical salary and fringe is allowable.
Lab supplies/operational costs should follow NIH guidance on allowable costs, with the exception of publication costs and travel which will not be covered by this mechanism. Small equipment up to $5,000 is allowable.
The total budget, agreed to by all PIs, cannot exceed $200,000. The budget should include a brief justification for the expenses.
Letters of Support:
Each faculty team member must have endorsement from their respective department Chair that indicates their approval of participation in the project within their existing FTE assignment to research and includes a statement of understanding that faculty salary offset is NOT an allowable expense. Combined all letters into a single PDF for upload.
