Drucker Family Innovation Fund Grants 2023/2024 (up to $50,000)

Application Deadline September 20, 2022

The BBDC is now accepting applications for the Drucker Family Innovation Fund Grants 2023/2024.

The Drucker Family Innovation Fund Grants is a joint funding program between the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre (BBDC) and the University Health Network/Mount Sinai Hospital Department of Medicine. Multiple grants will be awarded per year. The number of awards depends on the total interest earned on these endowed funds.

The program provides funding of up to $50,000 per application to enable eligible investigators to explore innovative research that may change the paradigm and reorient the field in a new direction. The emphasis of this grant is on INNOVATION. Applicants must demonstrate to reviewers that their proposal does not simply represent a logical extension of their existing research program.

This funding is not to be used as bridging or emergency funding, nor is it intended as funding for ongoing studies.

Eligibility

• The principal applicant must hold a faculty appointment with the University of Toronto at the level of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor at the time of application submission.
• The principal applicant must be appointed to the University of Toronto or a University of Toronto-affiliated institution.

In addition to the above, the principal applicant must be either:

• A registered member of the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre at the time of application submission. (for information about BBDC membership please view the Membership section of this website), or
• A faculty member in the Department of Medicine who holds their primary hospital appointment at Mount Sinai Hospital or the University Health Network
• Co-applicants must be independent researchers (not trainees or research associates). Co-applicants are not required to be members of the BBDC, UHN/MSH Department of Medicine faculty, or U of T faculty.
• The proposed research must be conducted at the University of Toronto or one of its affiliated institutions.
• Faculty can only submit one application as the principal applicant.

Eligible Expenses

• All supplies, materials and services related to the research project considered eligible expenses.
• Use of funds for trainee support (i.e. postdoctoral fellows, graduate and summer students) is considered an eligible expense.
• Ineligible Expenses: Use of funds for investigators’ salaries, equipment purchase or equipment-related expenses, investigator or trainee travel to conferences or attendance of virtual conferences, or institutional overhead fees is not permitted.

Funding.

Up to $50,000 will be awarded to successful applicants.

Funding Period

One-year funding period commencing on July 1,2023. However,all grant recipients should prepare to begin the research on July 1, 2023.

Application Procedure

Submit a completed application to the Banting & Best Diabetes Centre by the deadline date.

• Preference goes to high risk innovative proposals focused on diabetes and metabolism research; however, in the absence of meritorious applications in the area of diabetes and metabolism, submissions related to other areas of biomedical research get consideration.

(This program doesn’t intended to support activities in care delivery, evaluation of education programs, or practical issues in clinical management)

• The application must include an explanation as to how this project constitutes a highly innovative potentially paradigm-shifting undertaking for the applicant(s) and is not just an extension of, or related to, ongoing research efforts.
•  Applications that reflect a wholly new effort in the basic sciences or biomedical research for a specific investigator will be given preference (s). The financing priority will go to the most creative and potentially game-changing concepts.

Evaluation Criteria

Applications evaluation to base on the following criteria:

• Innovative nature of the study (departure from the present work of the investigator/lab)
• Scientific merit
• Investigator(s) (perceived ability, and access to resources required to successfully complete the proposal)
• Grants are $50,000, one-year awards. The scope of the proposal and budget must reflect this otherwise the application receives a low score for feasibility.
• Budget (should be realistic and all items justified)
• A minor component of the evaluation will be based on other factors that the review committee considers relevant to this competition

All applicants will be notified of the funding decisions in November 2022.  More so the BBDC’s website posts the finding decisions.

Download the 2023-2024 Drucker Family Innovation Fund Grant Application Form (PDF) here

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