Deadline: 25-May-22
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s (BWF) Climate and Health Interdisciplinary Award is now open to provide support for collaborative exploratory work that opens new ground for comprehensively assessing or mitigating the impacts of climate change on human health.
The goal is to prime new discovery in areas that are difficult to reach through discipline-specific, silo-driven approaches. Through this program they will provide flexible funding for conceiving and piloting work that will grow into productive and informative collaborations among researchers approaching connected questions from fields that usually do not interact.
These awards will support research and research coordination to unravel the relationships of climate change and human health. The awards are meant to stimulate development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches to problems with interconnected and potentially cumulative impacts on human health in general, and vulnerable populations, specifically.
Terms of Grant / Use of Funds
- Awards will be for a total of $375,000 to be distributed over 3 years. Three rounds of grants are planned. Approximately three awards will be made in each round.
- The Burroughs Wellcome Fund does not provide institutional overhead and indirect costs may not be charged against this award. Administrative support for teams’ work and benefits for salaries paid by the award are allowable as direct costs. This award can be used to buy out investigators’ and collaborators’ time as well as for traditional project-related costs.
- BWF makes awards to public or private non-profit organizations in the United States and Canada, including degree-granting academic institutions, research institutes, teaching hospitals, scientific societies, and other non-profits on behalf of the principal investigator. The payee institution is responsible for disbursing funds and for maintaining adequate supporting records and receipts of expenditures. Payee institutions may budget to support collaboration with researchers in LMICs.
- The support allocated for research is under the control of the principal investigator and may be used flexibly for items such as equipment, consumable supplies, meetings of the collaborative team, publication costs and travel to scientific meetings. Awards may have up to three co-PIs, but the award will be paid to a single institutional unit. Postdoctoral fellows may serve as co-PIs. Prior approval by BWF is required when, within an award year, purchases of equipment exceed $20,000 or travel costs exceed $8,000.
- During the award period, unused research funds may be carried over to the succeeding year. The principal investigator may receive a no-cost extension; requests explaining why an extension is needed must be submitted in writing at least two months prior to the end of the award. At the termination of the grant period, grant balances of $500 or less may be retained by the institution.
- For grant recipients in the U.S., the administrative fee is intended to cover the cost of medical insurance and other benefits, such as retirement. For grant recipients in Canada, the administrative fee is to be used as a contribution to the employer’s benefit plan.
- Award recipients may not hold concurrent BWF awards.
Criteria
- Selection criteria include:
- Importance/potential impact of the problem the research project addresses
- Innovation that the trans-disciplinarity will facilitate
- Background and accomplishments of the investigator or investigators proposing the research
- Strength of the collaborative plan
- Feasibility of the planned approach
- Commitment of the institution(s) to the interdisciplinary career development of those driving the project. Postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty applicants should demonstrate that they are in an environment that appreciates the challenges of interdisciplinary work and the extra effort required to build relationships across multiple fields, as documented by a letter of support submitted by each institution.
For more information, visit https://www.bwfund.org/funding-opportunities/climate-change-and-human-health/climate-and-health-interdisciplinary-awards-chi/