Clinical Scholar Awards

Purpose

To promote early career research development of academic pediatric endocrinologists.

Qualifications of Candidate

Senior fellows or early stage faculty members who are PES members in good standing are eligible to apply for the Clinical Scholar Award. Applicants must provide institutional documentation of junior faculty status at the planned time of the award with the additional stipulations as noted below. US citizenship or green card status is NOT required. Those with career plans in North America are favored. Further, the PES is committed to a culture of equity, diversity and inclusion, and aims for a distribution of awardees that reflects and celebrates the diversity of people and cultures of our membership.

A candidate may apply for support if he or she:

1. Is in the final year of training as an endocrinology fellow or is within the first 3 years of a full-time junior faculty position in Pediatric Endocrinology.
2. Has either an MD or DO degree.
3. Has completed a minimum of 2 years of pediatric endocrinology fellowship training.
4. Has a faculty rank that is no higher than Assistant Professor.
5. Does not have K12, K23, K08 or other K level funding and is not a PI on an R21, R01, or NSF award at the time of grant award period.

Should the candidate have other forms of extramural research support, they must submit their hypotheses and budget to identify potential overlaps in funding.

Note that multiple applications from one institution may be submitted, but only one application will be funded from a single institution.

Awardees will be expected to present their research findings at an oral plenary session at the national PES meeting at the conclusion of the granting period. PES will also request that awardees indicate acknowledgement of funding from the PES and provide copies of all manuscripts generated from work supported by the PES grant as well as information about awardees’ future academic appointments and subsequent grant awards for 5 years following completion of the PES award.

Sponsor/Mentor

Two letters of support are required and should be submitted with the application. One must be from the Division Chief (Sponsor) and the other from the Research Mentor (individual supervising the research project). The latter should be an established investigator with a record of current extramural support as evidenced on their NIH Biosketch. If the Division Chief and Research Mentor are the same person, a letter from the Department Chair is required. Additionally, applicants must establish an appropriate mentoring committee and provide the names and qualifications of these committee members.

Amount of Award

The award is up to $50,000 for one year. The exact amount of funding for each review cycle will be determined by the Awards Committee depending on the amount of available funds at the time of review of the application. Funding for a second year will be based on submission of a progress report and the competitive renewal of the proposal.

Please see the separate application link for 2nd year submission instructions.

Awardees are requested to notify the committee of any delays in the progress of their proposal. For funds that are not used during the term of the grant award, a one-time request for a no-cost extension (NCE) can be made to the Awards Committee and Board of Directors of PES, and, if approved, a 1-year NCE will be granted. Support from the Clinical Scholar award is only for research-related expenses and research career development, including technical support. The Sponsor must verify salary support for the Scholar. The funds shall not be used for the salary of the awardee, and institutions may not use more than 5% of the grant award for indirect or overhead expenses. Concomitant funding for the project from other grants is permitted. However, if a candidate holds or is applying for any other grant that proposes studies related to those in the CSA, PES requests that a copy of the specific aims, hypotheses, and budget of the other grant(s) be included in the CSA application so that reviewers can assess the degree of potential overlap.

General Instructions for Application

Applications will need to be submitted on-line through the PES website. An applicant must be a member of PES (dues paid for this current year) to be able to access the application. Applicants will then be directed to register. This will allow initiation of the application process and enable returning to finish different sections at a later time using the registration log-in.

Parts 3 and 4 under the Applicant Section should include a description of the Candidate’s Background, Goals and Objectives, the Career Development Plan, a Research Plan, Bibliography, and a detailed Budget and Budget Justification.

• The Candidate’s Background, Goals and Objectives (up to 1 page) must describe the candidate’s commitment to an academic career, discuss prior training and research experience and how this relates to the goals and objectives of the candidate, provide evidence of the candidate’s potential to develop into an independent investigator, and describe the short-term and long-term goals and objectives of the candidate
• The Candidate’s Career Development Plan (up to 1 page) should include a description of the skills and competencies that are to be achieved, the development/training/mentored activities through which the competencies will be achieved, and a timeline for execution of these competencies. This plan should be designed to move the candidate from the mentored phase to the independent phase of their research career over about 5 years
• The Research Plan (up to 5 pages not including the Bibliography) must have intrinsic research importance and serve as a suitable vehicle for learning the theories, methodologies, and conceptualizations necessary to become an independent investigator. The Research Plan should be formatted as follows: Specific Aims, Significance, Innovation and Approach (to include preliminary data, study design, methods, analytical plan with a power statement, and pitfalls and alternative strategies).

The application should be in Arial 11 font with at least 0.5 inch margins.

An application not compliant with these guidelines or received after the due date will be returned to the applicant and not reviewed.

If the application includes the use of human subjects or animals, please provide documentation at the time of application submission that the protocol has been submitted for Human Subjects or IACUC approval. Human Subjects or IACUC approval must be provided before an award can be made to the institution.

General Scoring of Applications

Applications will be reviewed by the PES Awards Committee, as well as by expert external reviewers. Reviewers will use the NIH grant application 9-point scale scoring system for the Overall Impact Score and Individual Scores for five core criteria: Significance, Investigator, Innovation, Approach, and Environment.

Deadline: December 14, 2023, 5:00 PM, EST