Deadline: 30-Jun-25
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation is seeking applications for its Focused Projects Grants to support early career investigators dedicated to focusing their research on basic, translational, clinical, or population sleep and circadian science.
This opportunity provides seed funding for mentored research projects to jumpstart an early career investigator’s research career and provide the necessary support and resources needed to establish a track record of funding.
Topics
- Diagnosis, Management and Treatment of Sleep Apnea: Open to mentored projects that address known research gaps in the diagnosis, management and/or treatment of OSA. Examples of research topics of interest are provided below:
- Identifying patient-important outcomes and understanding how they are impacted with treatment (e.g., sleepiness, quality of life).
- Exploring novel ways to characterize OSA (e.g., new/alternative measures, new framework combining multiple measures).
- Building knowledge about personalized OSA care through endotyping, phenotyping, and biomarkers (e.g., identifying patients at most risk of clinically important OSA outcomes).
- Understanding patient preferences and satisfaction with different OSA treatment options.
- Understanding OSA treatment adherence (e.g., barrier to adherence, how adherence relates to outcomes, strategies to address barriers, predictors of adherence to treatment).
- Comparative effectiveness research, especially in special populations (e.g., pediatrics, women, older adults, people with comorbidities), of:
- Alternate metrics for diagnosis or characterization of OSA severity
- Interventions and delivery methods to treat OSA.
- Interventions (e.g., technology, behavioral, psychological, pharmacologic) to improve OSA treatment adherence.
- Mentoring
- Since this is a Career Development Grant for early career investigators, individuals must identify a research mentor in the application with the skills, knowledge, and resources to provide mentorship to the applicant in sleep and circadian research.
- Number of Applications and Scientific Overlap
- Individuals may apply for multiple AASM Foundation grants, however, the same proposal (i.e., projects with budgetary and scientific overlap) may not be submitted for multiple requests for applications in a given cycle.
- Resubmission Policy
- Past applicants of the Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators who were not funded and are responsive to the topic of the current funding opportunity are allowed a single resubmission within 12 months of receipt of the original application notification.
Funding Information
- The Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators provides funds for one year and can be for up to $50,000 per grant, depending on the research focus.
Expected Deliverables
- The applicants must address the specific aims and any major modification requires AASM Foundation Board of Directors or Executive Committee approval.
- The AASM Foundation expects that the research funded by this grant will lead to the publication of original research in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, and submission of an abstract to the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) for presentation at the annual SLEEP meeting. The plan and costs for these deliverables must be stated in the application.
- The applicant must submit progress and final reports during the project period and set deadlines, describing project activities and results, as outlined below. Failure to submit reports per the established schedule will result in withholding grant payments from the sponsoring organization and the grant recipient becoming ineligible to apply for future AASM Foundation funding until all outstanding reporting is up to date.
Eligibility Criteria
- Individuals with an MD, DO, DDS, DMD, DNP, DNSc, PharmD, PhD, or equivalent professional degree.
- Individuals within 10 years of their terminal degree, post-doctoral training, or clinical training.
- International applicants, who meet all the eligibility criteria and whose sponsoring organization can accept the payment of grant funds in U.S. dollars, are eligible to apply.
Ineligibility Criteria
- Individuals who have received independent research funding of more than $250,000 are not eligible to apply. This does not apply to post-doctoral/ fellowship level training grants primarily covering the applicant’s salary (e.g., NRSAs).
- Individuals who have a financial conflict of interest or have the potential to incur significant financial benefit from the proposed work and beyond the work itself are not eligible to apply.
- Current AASM and AASM Foundation Board of Directors members are not eligible to apply and cannot be listed as a PI, co-PI, key personnel, mentor (paid or unpaid) or paid consultant for one year after their term ends.
- Individuals and organizations located in, or operating from, countries subject to U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions are not eligible to receive AASM Foundation funding.
Review Criteria
- Significance: Strong scientific premise of planned research in addressing important problems or critical barriers needed to progress the sleep medicine field.
- Mentorship and Career Development: The planned mentorship and career development activities will facilitate the applicant’s success by filling gaps in their knowledge, skills, and abilities. The mentors and key personnel are well-suited to support the project and the applicant’s growth.
- Approach: Planned research (overall strategy, methodology, and analyses) is scientifically sound, plan addresses protection of human subjects from research risks and inclusion/exclusion of individuals justified (if applicable).
- Environment: Institutional support and availability of equipment and other physical resources for the planned research.
For more information, visit AASM Foundation.