Endocrine Insider
June 14, 2007

The Endocrine Society’s Council has approved the continuation of the pilot Bridge Grant Program for an additional year in 2008. During its pilot year, the program provided $50K grants for seven outstanding research projects, and as many as ten will be awarded in 2008. Interest in the program has been strong, and Society members have made suggestions regarding the eligibility requirements. In response to these suggestions, and upon evaluation of the first year, two of the eligibility requirements have been adjusted. During the pilot year, the funding was restricted to competing renewal applications of established investigators with established projects that had recently been denied renewal funding by a national granting agency. In 2008, such investigators are eligible, and the program is open also to individuals who have been funded under mentored or semi-independent mechanisms and are seeking their first independent research grant to continue their work. For example, an individual who has held an NIH K award and now seeks an NIH R award would be eligible to apply. Established independent investigators who seek funding for a new project are not eligible.

In 2007, the non-funded research grant upon which the bridge grant application was based must have ranked within the top quartile to be considered for Society funding. Society members made the case for relaxing this restriction, as increasing numbers of meritorious grants are being denied funding, thereby making each successive round of grant submission more competitive than the last. In response to this argument, the Society has relaxed the ranking requirement to include any non-funded grant that ranked within the top 40th percentile.

Bridge Grant funds are approved for direct research costs and are expected to provide investigators the ability to continue working on promising projects and to retain key personnel while seeking outside funds. Bridge funding should provide researchers the means with which to strengthen their research proposals for resubmission to national agencies or major foundations, thus improving the chances of the proposal being re-funded.

More details on the revised 2008 program will be available soon on the Society’s Web site at http://www.endo-society.org/publicpolicy/bridge-grants/index.cfm.