The Chicago Biomedical Consortium

The CBC announces a new award program (Spark) that is intended to advance multi-institutional collaborations of exceptional creativity. Bold and highly innovative proposals must have the potential to produce a major impact in the area of biomedical research and new high-end technologies. Appropriate Spark projects will most likely be interdisciplinary. While the CBC intends to support projects that are much more creative than what is typically funded by the NIH, the NIH P01 awards serve as a convenient reference for the scale of what a Spark project should seed.

Applicants may submit a one-page, Phase 1 pre-proposal at any time. Pre-proposals will be evaluated on a rolling basis. If the project is deemed appropriate for the Spark program, a three-page full proposal will be invited. CBC reserves the right to step outside the usual constraints of federal-style evaluation procedures and work with principal investigators to shape proposals in a constructive, interactive manner. A meeting or conference call involving applicants and CBC evaluators may be scheduled.

AVAILABLE FUNDING

• $1,600,000 is allocated in calendar 2008
• A typical award is expected to be approximately $300,000 for one year with maximum permitted of $400,000 for use over 2 years. (Note the 3 CBC universities have waived all indirect costs)
• Sparks are one-time awards without no-cost extension or renewal and proposals can be submitted at any time to be reviewed on a rolling basis.
• Proposals must be responsive to the CBC mission. For example, student or post-doc support must be jointly supervised. Equipment, instrumentation or infrastructure must be broadly beneficial and strengthen other CBC research.

ELIGIBILITY AND SELECTION CRITERIA

• Applicants must be tenured or tenure-eligible faculty with research programs at University of Chicago, Northwestern University, or University of Illinois at Chicago.
• Inter-institutional collaboration: proposals must have Principal Investigators from at least two of the three CBC universities.
• Special consideration given to high-risk/high-reward projects.
• Research teams may not already be funded for similar research activities.
• There may be multiple applications from each institution.
• There is no expectation that Spark Awards will be distributed evenly among the CBC institutions.

APPLICATION PROCESS
Phase I (Pre-proposal)
Interested parties are encouraged first to contact the CBC Scientific Director on their campus or Kathryn Stallcup, Executive Director of the CBC, at 847-467-0389.

1. Cover page including:

• Title of no more than 60 characters.
• Name, title, contact information (address, email address, phone number) and link to the website of each Principal Investigator.

2. One page (no more than 500 words) of text describing the proposed collaborative project. Pilot data is not expected, since Spark awards are for NEW ideas. The text describing the project should focus on the strength, novelty, and uniqueness of the proposed collaboration and research and indicate the anticipated broad and/or longer-term impact. (Please note that documents longer than 500 words will not be reviewed.)

3. NIH Biosketches, including funding information, should be submitted for each P.I.

All documents should be assembled in the order listed above and made into a single pdf document named with the title of the project. The pdf file should then be sent electronically to Kathryn Stallcup: k-stallcup@northwestern.edu.

Phase II (Full proposal)
1. Only INVITED full proposals will be considered.
2. Proposals may not exceed 3 pages of text (NIH guidelines and format).
3. NIH Biosketches must be submitted for each PI.
4. A budget for the funds requested must have a front summary page of institutional totals and use PHS 398 form for details of each institutional allocation. A one-page justification of the budget must note collaborative benefits as appropriate.
5. CBC seeks to leverage its funds, so Spark applicants must briefly state specific sources for potential continuation funding.

All publicity regarding a Spark Award and publications that result from the funded work must include the following exact acknowledgment: "This work was funded by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium with support from The Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust."

Questions? Contact the CBC Scientific Director on your campus:

Or

Kathryn Stallcup, CBC Executive Director, k-stallcup at northwestern dot edu
Aharon Solomon, Senior Program Manager, aharon_solomon_cbc at northwestern dot edu