Translating Duke Health: Request for Proposals Cardiovascular Health

Duke Health is pleased to announce its first Translating Duke Health call for proposals for high risk/high impact research in the area of the heart and disease.  This RFP is designed to identify, and eventually support, truly innovative approaches related to the Translating Duke Health’s focus on “Cardiovascular Robustness, Resilience, and Rejuvenation”.

Translating Duke Health is one of the signature programs animating Advancing Health Together, our Duke Health Strategic Planning Framework.  Translating Duke Health is a multiyear, multidisciplinary program to capitalize on our collective strengths in research, clinical care and population health to address major health challenges.  Additional information about Translating Duke Health is available at translatingdukehealth.org.

For this call, we are focusing on projects that would impact the understanding of the prevention of transitions from cardiovascular health to disease and/or facilitating the return to health.  We are especially interested in proposals that span multiple dimensions from basic to clinical to populations.

We are particularly interested in proposals that would build new collaborations and/or new teams and might lead to extended productive (and NIH-funded) collaborations. 

We plan to make two to four one-year awards each with a total budget of up to $100,000, based on the following criteria:

• Originality
• Scientific rationale and innovation
• Potential for scientific or clinical impact
• Clear articulation of the way in which the proposed research differs from other funded projects of the co-Principal Investigators
• Clear articulation of how this project is anticipated to grow into a larger funded body of work
• Clarity about the relationship to the goals of the Initiative, namely “Cardiovascular Robustness, Resilience, and Rejuvenation”

Please include the following in your proposal:

• Title page and contact information of co-PIs
• Abstract of 150 words or less describing the project
• Project proposal that describes the significance, approach, timeline, and future directions in 5 pages or less (11 point Arial font, inclusive of figures but not including citations)
• Biographical sketches for participating faculty, including current and pending sources of support. Please use the new (2018) “NIH Biosketch Form” as outlined at http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-15-032.html.

• Please provide a budget. Translating Duke Health prefers not to pay faculty salaries and encourages departmental faculty support, but recognizes in some cases effort support might be required.  If you are requesting faculty salary, please (1) ask for a reasonable percent effort, and (2) justify the request in relation to departmental expectations and actual effort on the project.

Deadline: Proposals must be received by 5 PM EST, January 5, 2018

Selection Process for New Awards – Proposals will be peer-reviewed, and awards announced by February 15.  Applicants may be interviewed before or after the meeting of the Review Panel to assure that the proposed research is a new direction relative to the laboratory’s current efforts and to gain greater clarity about the goals of the proposals. Selection of peer reviewers and final funding decisions will be made by the Dean of the School of Medicine.  Applicants will be notified of funding decisions but will not otherwise receive feedback from the evaluation process.  Awardees will be required to submit brief progress reports on a quarterly basis and will be expected to present their accomplishments at various meetings as the term of the grant proceeds. 

Questions and completed applications should be submitted as pdf files to: translatingdukehealth@duke.edu.