Harvard Medical School (HMS) is now accepting applications for the Evergrande COVID-19 Response Fund Awards, available through the Greater Boston Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (GBCPR). Initial funding to support the Consortium has been generously provided to HMS by the China Evergrande Group.
In December 2019, China began to experience an outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARSCoV-2), responsible for COVID-19 disease. Since that time, the outbreak has spread to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. HMS, in collaboration with the Guangzhou Institute for Respiratory Health (GIRH) in Guangzhou, China, has launched a response fund to address critical needs raised by this outbreak. These will involve research activities on all aspects of COVID-19 disease, including:
- Research to understand disease epidemiology and modeling (including analyses of acute public health responses)
- Research to elucidate the pathogenesis of the disease
- Research to develop rapid diagnostic tools (especially novel tools that are not currently represented in the world’s diagnostics armamentarium)
- Research to develop small molecule and antibody therapeutics
- Research to develop vaccines
- Research to improve the clinical management of the disease
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All research approaches will be considered, from classical laboratory approaches to artificial intelligence applications and more.
Preference will be given to projects that are directly applicable to address the current, urgent needs of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Community Resources
Applicants are allowed to propose experiments that require the utilization of GBCPR community resources. Such resources could include, for example, access to a BSL-3 or BSL-4 facility in the Boston area. A complete list of these resources is still being compiled, and other such resources are under development. The current list of community resources is under development at this website: https://gbcpr.hms.harvard.edu.
Evaluation Criteria
- All submitted proposals will be reviewed by the GBCPR Proposal Selection Task Force.
- Proposals will be evaluated based on:
- Potential scientific and/or clinical impact
- Potential to address the current, urgent needs of the COVID-19 outbreak
- Skills and experience of the Lead PI and any Co-PIs and their demonstrated ability to execute the project within the funding period
Benefits
- GBCPR anticipates awarding funding for multiple research projects.
- Applicants may submit proposals for a maximum two-year funding period, with a total cost budget (i.e., a total cost budget over the entire funding period) of $50,000 to $500,000 per project.
- It is anticipated that there will be future RFP-based funding cycles.
Eligibilities
- Tenure-track faculty members at the level of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, or Full Professor at Harvard University (HMS, FAS, HCSPH, HSDM, SEAS), MIT, Boston University School of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and hospitals and research institutes affiliated with these four medical schools are eligible to apply as Lead PI.
- Proposals may include one or more Co-PI collaborators who will contribute to the intellectual development of the project, design studies or parts thereof, and be involved with the project throughout the term of the funding.
- Eligibility requirements for Co-PIs are the same as for the Lead PI. Senior scientists from biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies who meet their firm’s Principal Investigator eligibility criteria are also eligible as Co-PIs.
- There can be a maximum of one Lead PI per proposal. A PI may serve as Lead PI on one proposal only and can serve as a Co-PI on other proposals as well.
- Instructors, Lecturers, and Trainees (e.g., students, clinical trainees, postdoctoral fellows, and clinical fellows) cannot serve as the Lead PI or Co-PI of an application, although they would be encouraged to participate as members of the research team.
Application Process
- Proposals must be received via email to [email protected] by March 24, 2020, at 5:00 p.m. ET.
- Please type “GBCPR Proposal: Lead PI LastName_FirstName” (for example, “GBCPR Proposal: Doe_John”) in the subject line of the submitting email, and use the same name for the PDF document containing the proposal.
- Only one proposal per applicant (Lead PI) will be reviewed by the Proposal Selection Task Force.
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Application Deadline: March 24, 2020
Application ClosedOfficial link
