Funding Opportunities

The Miriam Hospital’s Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) for Stress, Trauma, and Resilience (STAR), directed by Drs. Laura Stroud and Audrey Tyrka is pleased to announce an opportunity for $40,000 pilot project funding in the area of stress, trauma, and resilience. The STAR COBRE is a new center formed out of the STAR Initiative in the Brown Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. Based within the Center for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine (CBPM) at The Miriam Hospital, the COBRE supports transformative research to understand how stress and trauma impact mental and physical health and develop novel approaches to interventions that will promote resilience across the lifespan. The STAR COBRE is unified by a mission to create a vibrant regional and national hub for transformative research into stress, trauma, and resilience. The STAR COBRE community is highly collaborative, dedicated to diversity and equity in all forms, and to creating an inclusive environment where the contributions of all are recognized and valued.

The Center’s Pilot Project Program provides support to emerging scholars to conduct cutting-edge, impactful research that advances the COBRE’s mission, and enables investigators to collect preliminary data in support of grant applications for independent external research funding–especially NIH funding. Projects that include a focus on health inequalities and/or historically marginalized groups are of particular interest. Applicants must hold a faculty-equivalent position in Rhode Island at the time of funding and be eligible for NIH funding but not have concurrent funding from another IDeA program (e.g., other COBREs, Advance CTR funding). Successful Pilot Project Leaders will contribute to the STAR COBRE community and leverage our research cores. The Community Collaborative (CC) Core supports community partnerships and recruitment/retention of underserved and minoritized populations. The Technology, Assessment, Data and Analysis (TADA) Core supports methods harnessing cutting-edge technology, data management and statistics. In addition, Pilot Project Awardees will work with expert mentors, and be offered networking and career development opportunities that will catalyze their career trajectory and R01 submission(s). Our culture embodies the values of integrity, respect, inclusion, and collegiality. Competitive applicants will embrace these values and incorporate them into their research programs and career development.

Please note: Opportunities for pilot project funding are available on a rolling basis. Please contact Maggie Walsh (mwalsh8@lifespan.org) for more information on how to apply.

Applicants must hold a faculty-equivalent position in Rhode Island at the time of funding and be eligible for NIH funding (see Eligibility Section). Applicants may be from any scientific discipline or department. Successful projects will describe transformative research into stress, trauma, and resilience, broadly construed, and will propose to leverage the Community Collaborative (CC) and Technology, Assessment, Data, and Analysis (TADA) Cores.

Early career investigators with faculty appointments are preferred for this opportunity; however faculty investigators at any rank are allowed to lead Pilot Projects. The research Pilot Project Leader must be employed in Rhode Island. Pilot project leads may not hold concurrent funding from another IDeA program (e.g., other COBREs, Advance CTR funding). Postdoctoral fellows or other positions that do not carry independent faculty status at the applicant institution are not eligible, unless evidence is provided that a faculty appointment will be in place at the time of the award.

The intent of this FOA is to support and develop promising investigators whose early career support consists of awards geared toward initiating their intended area of research. Each Pilot Project Lead should indicate in their Biographical Sketch and Other Support their current, pending, and previous history of peer-reviewed research support.

Because the pilot project funds derive, in part, from our NIGMS-funded COBRE, awarding of a COBRE-funded Pilot Project will require one to relinquish any other NIGMS sponsored NIGMS IDeA programmatic funding.
Foreign components are not allowed.

For more information on eligibility, contact Maggie Walsh.

While the best science and the ability of the investigator to contribute to and meet the goals of the Center will be prioritized, special consideration will be given to those investigators who (in no particular order):

• Align with the COBRE’s focus on adverse childhood experiences, stress, and trauma, and who have interest and/or experience in ecological or other technological or advanced analytic approaches and/or community partnerships.

• Whose proposals focus on health inequities and/or historically marginalized groups.

• Are Miriam Hospital based faculty (where the STAR COBRE is based).

• Employ the use of COBRE Core services.

• Are committed to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging through research, service, mentoring, and/or lived experience.

Successful applicants may receive up to $40,000 per year in direct costs for one year; a no cost extension and/or second year of funding may be available with exceptional achievement and upon approval and pending the availability of funds. Pilot Project recipients will also be supported by a rich array of STAR COBRE resources for professional development and project support.

Application budgets may not exceed $40,000 in direct costs. No indirect costs (F&A) are provided with these awards.

Unused funds must be transferred back to the COBRE. The Awards are NOT transferable to institutions outside of Rhode Island. If the Principal Investigator transfers to a non-eligible institution, the remaining pilot project grant funds will be transferred back to the COBRE/institution. Carry Forward of unobligated balance is not allowable.

Reviews will use the NIH review criteria with additional criterion of core utilization and contribution to the Center. The Overall Impact score will also include consideration of relevance to the Center’s mission, contribution to our culture of inclusion, scientific merit of the work, potential for the award to provide a basis for further research support from external sponsors, and the likelihood that the proposed work will be completed during the award period.

If your project includes human subjects or vertebrate animals, your institutional IRB or IACUC (respectively) approval is required before funds can be released.

Pilot project grant recipients must participate in Center Enhancement and Programmatic Activities. Pilot recipients will be required to provide project updates during the STAR Project Meetings which occur each month and attend and present at the annual COBRE symposium and retreat and the IDeA Regional meeting. Pilot recipients must submit progress reports.

Pilot project recipients are required to acknowledge sponsorship from the COBRE for Stress, Trauma, Resilience supported by the grant in all research publications and presentations during the performance period. Future publications related to this research must also acknowledge COBRE sponsorship.