CAREER DEVELOPMENT GRANTS
Applications for these grants will be accepted starting Monday, April 7 and must be submitted online by June 1, 2008. The award expected start date is January 1, 2009. Award decisions will be communicated to applicants by July 1, 2008.
CIMIT Career Development Grants allow an individual with established expertise in one medical or technical area to acquire knowledge in a second medical or technical area that will allow him/her to make unique subsequent interdisciplinary contributions. A mentor must be identified in the new area, and the applicant and the mentor must together present an educational curriculum to acquire the additional knowledge base, and also a description of the benefits likely to be enabled by this training. The applicant must commit to attending the CIMIT Forum on a regular basis, and participating in other CIMIT activities, such as the annual Innovation Congress.
Review Criteria:
- Established expertise in a medical or technical area
- An explicit plan for acquiring knowledge in a second area
- Explanation of how that new knowledge will permit unique interdisciplinary contributions to medical device development or clinical practice.
- An identified mentor with expertise in the new area
- A curriculum jointly developed by the applicant and mentor to complete the curriculum by devoting the requested % FTE over a 1-year period
- Next-stage development direction
All CIMIT proposals will be evaluated for fit with the CIMIT mission and the following criteria:
- Programmatic fit within an existing CIMIT program area, or desirable expansion to an important new area within the CIMIT mission
- CIMIT does not fund projects in drug development, information- technology-centric areas, basic research, or clinical trials
- Collaborative nature of the project (inter-disciplinary/ inter-institutional)
- CIMIT does not support projects in areas of well-established, large-scale multidisciplinary collaboration, such as MRI pulse sequence development
- CIMIT track-record of previously CIMIT-funded applicants
- Intellectual property history and opportunities
- CIMIT support is essential to success (i.e., the project could not be done without CIMIT support)
- Potential exit strategies for the project including future alternative funding sources, contacts with companies, licensing and venturing opportunities
- Probability of clinical adoption, if the project is concluded successfully
- The project does not fit another established funding mechanism
- CIMIT does not fund projects for which corporate sponsorship or federal (NIH or other agencies) sponsorship is appropriate
- It is likely that CIMIT can provide facilitation support, in addition to funding
In some cases, science and CSI applications that are not approved for funding will be returned to the primary investigator to be recast as a Career Development Award. These grants can range in size.