CBC Catalyst Award
Request for Applications
The CBC’s Catalyst Award program offers funding of up to $200K for one- or two-year new inter-institutional collaborative research projects in the broad area of Systems Biology. Projects should address an important biological/biomedical question. Catalysts are not intended to support incremental progress -- the proposed research should be innovative and risky. Preliminary data is not required. Collaborations involving senior and junior faculty members are given special consideration. Research teams must be composed of Principal Investigators from at least two CBC Institutions (Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois at Chicago.)
Catalyst funding may be used to generate data for a variety of funding sources, including NIH R-level grants. Catalyst proposals should include a plan for obtaining future support.
The Catalyst application should be written in a way that the significance, innovation, and impact of the proposed research can be appreciated by a multidisciplinary team of reviewers. Applications are reviewed for creativity and scientific merit by the CBC Scientific Review Board, which is composed of three senior scientists from each of the CBC institutions.
Key Dates for 2012:
Please note that the online proposal submission closes at 5 pm on the day listed for each submission round.
| Application Round | Online Submission Opens |
Proposal Submission Deadline |
Expected Decision |
| Spring 2012 | February 27, 2012 |
March 7, 2012 |
May 16, 2012 |
| Fall 2012 | August 20, 2012 |
August 28, 2012 |
November 14, 2012 |
Eligibility:
- Research Applicants must be tenured or tenure-track faculty with research programs at Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and/or University of Illinois at Chicago who will jointly engage in collaborative research.
- Research proposals must have Co-Principal Investigators from at least two of the CBC universities.
- Proposals should show both innovation and scientific merit.
- Research teams should demonstrate either a new collaboration or a significantly new direction in an existing collaboration.
- Research teams should not already be funded for similar research activities.
- There may be multiple applications from each institution. A Principal Investigator may participate in only one application per round, and investigators who already have Catalyst funding are not eligible to re-apply during the term of their award.
- There is no expectation that Catalyst Awards will be distributed evenly among the CBC institutions.
Available Funding:
- Up to $1,000,000 to be allocated in 2011.
- Grants can range up to $200,000 for use over 1-2 years (note that the three CBC institutions have waived all indirect costs.)
- Catalyst Awards are one-time awards with no expectation of continuation or renewal by the CBC. No-cost extensions are not allowed.
Application Process (updated June 10, 2011):
All proposals MUST be prepared according to the guidelines listed below.
I. The Proposal:
All pages and documents listed below should be assembled into a SINGLE PDF DOCUMENT in the order listed. Please name the pdf (in all caps) with last names of all PIs listed on the proposal. Proposals not conforming to the above guidelines will NOT BE ACCEPTED. (To download a pdf containing the instructions on how to assemble the CBC Catalyst Proposal click here.)
- Page 1: Title Page
- Title of the proposal (no more than 80 characters)
- Name, title, institution, and contact information including the email address of each PI
- Pages 2-4: Include the following sections with the indicated titles and in the indicated order. Please use at least size 11 font and 0.9 inch margins.
- One-paragraph lay-language summary of project (max. 300 words)
- One-paragraph summary of significance and innovation of the project (max. 300 words)
- Proposal Statement, including:
- Description of proposed research
- Nature of inter-institutional collaboration
- Criteria for measuring success of the proposed project
- Long-term funding plan for continuation beyond Catalyst funding
- Page 5: Relevant Cited Scientific References (not to exceed one page)
- Pages 6 and beyond:
- 2-page budget from each of the participating
institutions
By special arrangement with the Research Administration Offices at the CBC universities, it is not necessary to obtain institutional endorsement of proposals before they are submitted to the CBC. However, the CBC may share proposals with Research Administrators during the review process, and the CBC will require institutional endorsements before any final funding decisions are made. The proposed research activities and budget requests must thus be within institutional guidelines in order for a proposal to be successful. (Note: PIs may claim up to 2% effort/salary relief.) All expenses from a single institution should be entered on a budget form available from here (printed and scanned pdf of the budget form is also acceptable.) - Up-to-date 2-page NIH Biosketch for each PI, including current and pending funding
List no more than 10 publications most relevant to the submitted proposal. If there is real or the appearance of funding overlap with this Catalyst application, please append a clarifying statement. - Special requirements
If a research project requires special expertise that is not substantially and readily apparent in the PIs’ biosketches (e.g. genomics, proteomics, informatics, imaging, high throughput analysis, chemical libraries), a letter confirming and describing consultation with a core director or colleague recognized in that field is recommended. Please note that the CBC is not allowed to fund researchers from non-CBC institutions, but will accept their letters of support. CBC funds can be used to pay for services provided by core facilities at non-CBC institutions.
- 2-page budget from each of the participating
institutions
All pages and documents listed above should be assembled into a SINGLE PDF DOCUMENT in the order listed. Please name the pdf (in all caps) with last names of all PIs listed on the proposal. Proposals not conforming to the above guidelines will NOT BE ACCEPTED. (To download a pdf containing the instructions on how to assemble the CBC Catalyst Proposal click here.)
II. Proposal Submission:
Completed proposals MUST be submitted online. One of the PIs will need a CBC account for online submission. To register for a CBC account, please click here. After completing the registration you will be directed to the Catalyst Submission Form. The online submission for the 2011 Fall Round is now closed and will reopen for the 2012 Spring Round applications on February 27, 2012.
If you have questions, please contact:
| Katie Stallcup | CBC Executive Director | k-stallcup at northwestern dot edu |
| Karen Snapp | CBC Associate Director | ksnapp at northwestern dot edu |
or contact the CBC Scientific Director on your campus:
| NU: | Richard Morimoto | r-morimoto at northwestern dot edu |
| UChicago: | Shohei Koide | skoide at uchicago dot edu |
| UIC: | Brian K. Kay | bkay at uic dot edu |