Alzheimer Research Foundation - 2023 Call for Grant applications

Research

Funding organisation:

Alzheimer's Association

What?

SAO-FRA will award grant applications for research performed in non-profit organizations only. Funds are awarded to the authorized organization and not to the Principal Investigator or his/her coworkers. However, SAO-FRA requires that all funds are solely used for research and not for overhead, administrative costs or any other peripheral cost. 

TSAO-FRA awards different types of grants: 

• Standard Grant Applications
  Research proposals have to be written for a 3-years award period. The amount of this award is fixed at €300.000. Only professors up to associate professors (with a minimum of 10% appointment at a Belgian university + unless within less than 3 years from their official retirement) and preferentially experienced in research in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, are eligible. 
  
  
• Pilot Grant Applications
  Research proposals have to be written for a 2-years award period. The amount of this award is fixed at €110.000. Postdocs with at least 1 year (date of submission deadline) up to a maximum of 9 years postdoc experience and at least one first author research paper on the topic of interest in neurosciences and preferentially neurodegenerative disorders, at the date of the submission deadline, are eligible applicants in this award category. Young researchers have to be legally associated with an experienced research team working on Alzheimer disease and related dementia.
  
  
• Young Research Award
  Applicants for a Standard Grant Application are also eligible for the Young Research Award, if they are within 3 years from the official start of their academic appointment, at the date of the submission deadline. The winner, as selected by the Scientific Advisory Board, will be awarded €50.000 on top of his/her Standard Grant. This money must be used to broaden the scope of the research project. If the applicant wishes to enter the contest he or she should tick the required box in the online Standard Grant Application form.

Further Call Guidelines

• Grant applications are accepted from investigators working at Belgian non-profit research organizations;
• Funds are awarded to the authorized organization and not to the Principal Investigator or his/her coworkers; 
• Projects must be novel and original and cannot be submitted both as pilot and standard grant;
• The applicant of a pilot and standard grant are considered to be the principal investigator;
• SAO-FRA does not fund the salary of the Principal Investigator except for Pilot Grant applications;
• SAO-FRA will only fund the proposed research that was described in the Research Plan in the awarded grant application; 
• In each grant cycle, there can only be applied for one standard and one pilot grant from the same lab, provided that there is no scientific or financial overlap between their grant application proposals. A new grant application can also not scientifically or financially overlap in time with any preceding awarded grant application;
• The start date of an awarded grant application is January 1st of the year following its selection.

Application?

Applications should be completed through the online Optimy platform via login.stopalzheimer.be taking into account the 2023 SAO-FRA Grant Application Guidelines.

• Clicking 'Submit an application' will direct you to an identification page where you, upon first login, can create a user account.
• Upon creation of an account, you will have access to the 2023 SAO-FRA Grant Application Guidelines. Please follow the very specific instructions for applications! You can find them here
• Below the 2023 SAO-FRA Grant Application Guidelines you can start submission of a new application. 

For projects not selected for funding, a summary of the reviewer reports can be requested via scientific.secretariat@stopalzheimer.be. Rebuttals and/or discussions about the final decision however will not be accepted.

Contact OBI in time (before 17/04/2023 at the latest) because following documents (to be downloaded from the application platform) need to be signed digitally with Docusign (OBI will take care of the signing-procedure) and added to the proposal:

• "Award Terms and Conditions": To be signed by the Principal Investigator and the authorized organizational official.
• "Award Budget Table and Justification": To be signed by the Principal Investigator and the Authorized Financial Official
• "Award payment form": To be signed by the Principal Investigator and the Authorized Financial Official

Regulations?

Submission deadline is APRIL 25 midnight (GMT+1). Please note that grant applications must be submitted in time on the Optimy platform. Incomplete grant applications that do not comply with the SAO-FRA Application Guidelines and Instructions and the SAO-FRA Award Terms and Conditions, or submitted after the application deadline will NOT enter the review process. STYLE AND FONT: It is obligatory to use Calibri, font 11, single spacing, to fill in the application form. Other styles or fonts are NOT accepted.

Regulations?

• Each year both standard and pilot grants are awarded during a Grant Award Ceremony. The presence of each awardee at this Grant Award Ceremony is mandatory
  
  
• If asked and needed by SAO-FRA, all awardees agree to give at least one lecture per year for lay public about Alzheimer’s disease research in general and that can include their own scientific contributions.
  
  
• The SAO-FRA request from each pilot grand awardee a video for the lay public (in Dutch/French for Belgian applicants, in English if otherwise) wherein the research is proposed and what the ambitions are.
  
  

• SAO-FRA subscribes that biological reagents (e.g. recombinant DNA clones, cultured cell lines, hybridoma cell lines, mutant or unique model organisms, etc.) developed partly or completely during the course of SAO-FRA-sponsored research must be made available to qualified investigators after publication of data using or describing these reagents.

More information?

For information and questions contact the SAO-FRA Scientific Secretariat:

• Scientific Advisory Board of SAO-FRA, Chair: Prof. Wim Annaert
• SAO-FRA Scientific secretariat (contact persons: Soumaya Mesnani/Joost Martens), E-mail: scientific.secretariat@stopalzheimer.be, Tel: 02/424.02.04

Deadline intern

17.04.2023, 25.04.2023

Contact Hasselt University?

E-mail carine.ulenaers@uhasselt.be

Tel. +3211268950