Ryan Research Acceleration Fund - Round 3

PAT & SHIRLEY RYAN FAMILY RESEARCH ACCELERATION FUND 2025 REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

The Pat & Shirley Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund will support translational research in the life sciences that is not at a stage to qualify for funding by existing sources—and primarily intended for research that falls into the gaps not supported by government funding. The seed grants are intended to serve as the gap support of projects that have the potential to attract significant translational funding that has potential to be commercialized.


Please visit https://sites.northwestern.edu/rafund/ for full information on the review process and notification, review criteria, and reporting.


Application Due Date: March 3, 2025 (Monday) at 9 am CST


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Proposal Topic Area*

Select one.

Enter number only.


One single PDF file of PROPOSAL TO UPLOAD

I. Cover Page (one page)


• Proposal Title

• Lead PI’s name, position, department, school, email

• Submitting unit

• Key personnel (co-PIs) names, rank, department, school, email

• Indicate proposal topic areas (select one)

  1. Therapeutics
  2. Devices/Diagnostics
  3. Health IT/Data Sciences/Analytics
  4. Other



II. Lay Summary (0.5 pages)


Clearly summarize:

• the unmet need

• the potential for the proposed work to enable critical advances towards meeting this need

• the next steps, both near-term and longer-term, that may be needed to translate/commercialize the work



III. Project Summary Slide (using this PowerPoint template)



IV. Project Description (maximum length of 3 pages, including references)


Vision - including potential societal impacts.

Background

  • Explain how your approach compares to current state-of-the art
  • Describe the status of your work including key results and data
  • Describe how your approach addresses the barriers and gaps towards achieving a solution.

Justification for Support – with an explanation of why the project is not a strong candidate for other support.

Research Strategy

  • Describe your one-year research plan, breaking down your strategy into milestones
  • Explain how achieving the milestones is critical to translation/commercialization
  • Describe your plans to seek follow-on external funding, highlighting how your milestone outcomes could enable this future funding

Translation Plan

  • Describe how your project can be translated/commercialized
  • Include information on market opportunity, size, estimated timeline, and competitors

Team - including expertise and contribution of key team members.

References – can use 9-point font size; not to exceed 0.25 pages.


V. If this is a resubmission from a previous round, please include a description of how this proposal addresses the prior feedback. (maximum length of 1 page)



VI. Detailed budget (use the Excel template)


• Examples of allowable direct expense categories: faculty salary, postdocs, research staff, supplies, fee for service, PhD students funded as Research Assistants [See this Sponsored Research resource for budget guidance.]

• Examples of non-allowable direct expense categories: F&A, administrative support, and subawards.



VII. Budget justification




VIII. NIH Biosketch for each participating key personnel faculty member




IX. Endorsement letter by Chair or the Center Director

Upload a SINGLE PDF of the items listed above.

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