The Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award provides grants to early-career physician scientists to facilitate their transition to independent clinical research careers.
The transition to an independent research career is often more difficult for physician scientists than it is for other researchers, as these individuals must balance the demands of both seeing patients and conducting research. DDCF’s Medical Research Program created the Clinical Scientist Development Award to provide mentored research funding to early-career physician-scientist faculty to enable their transition to independent and successful research careers.
In 2018, the Medical Research Program awarded 18 grants to investigators working in a broad range of disease areas. Since the beginning of the program in 1998, the foundation has awarded 304 Clinical Scientist Development Awards totaling over $136 million.
The Clinical Scientist Development Award consists of $150,000 annual direct costs plus $15,000 (10 percent) annual indirect costs for three years. The priority of the CSDA program is to fund outstanding individuals with potential for clinical research careers, whose projects will address highly significant research questions and lead to career advancement. DDCF does not have funding priorities based on disease area or research type. In keeping with the wishes expressed in Doris Duke’s will, experiments that use animals or primary tissues derived from animals will not be supported by this program.
Eligibility. Applicants must:
- Have received an MD, DO, or foreign equivalent degree from an accredited institution.
- Have a valid, active US medical license at the time of application, but do not have to be US citizens.
- Work at a US academic institution that grants doctoral degrees and is able to receive an award as an organization with 501(c)(3) Internal Revenue Service status.
- Have a full-time, faculty appointment as Assistant Professor at a US academic institution that grants doctoral degrees. Adjunct, affiliated, temporary, part-time or acting faculty positions are not eligible for this competition. Applicants that become Associate Professor on or before the award start date of July 1, 2019 will not be eligible for the award. Applicants from Harvard Medical School should check our FAQs to determine eligibility of their faculty appointment.
- Have been appointed to their first full-time assistant professor faculty position between December 1, 2014 and December 1, 2017 (i.e., have been at the appointment no more than 4 years but at least 1 year). Exceptions to the four-year requirement will be considered on a case-by-case basis for individuals who do not meet this criterion because of extraordinary situations. Check program FAQs for examples of situations for which DDCF may make an exception. DDCF approval of exemptions must be obtained prior to submitting a pre-proposal. Exemption requests must be made by October 26, 2018. Exemptions are not granted for applicants with less than one year at their academic position.
- Not have served as the principal investigator of a single or multi-principal investigator, multiyear research grant with annual direct funding in the amount of $225,000 or higher with a start date prior to and inclusive of July 1, 2019, except for NIH career development awards. The CSDA is not for researchers who have already attained this level of funding, even if the researcher substituted for the original principal investigator of the grant.
- Not have served as the principal investigator on a single or multiple-principal investigator NIH R01 research grant or equivalent that has a start date prior to and inclusive of July 1, 2019. This includes but is not limited to: research projects that are part of a P01 program project, P50 center grant or a U01 cooperative agreement, DP1, DP2, R37, and VA Merit grants.
- Not be in a graduate degree program at the time of the award. All education and training toward advanced degrees must be completed by the award start date, July 1, 2019.
- Be guaranteed a minimum overall research time protection of 75% of full-time professional effort by the institution where the applicant has an appointment, in the event an award is made. There is no explicit minimum percent effort that must be dedicated to the CSDA project. Applicants in specialties that require considerable effort to maintain clinical competency skills, such as those in surgery, are eligible to apply if a minimum effort commitment to research of 50% during the award term could be guaranteed by the institution. Whether an effort commitment of less than 75% would be conducive to committed and long-lasting clinical research careers will be evaluated to determine funding merit of an application.
Deadlines: November 28, 2018 (3 PM EDT; pre-proposals); March 22, 2019 (3 PM EDT; invited full proposals)
Filed Under: Funding Opportunities