U-M Precision Health announces first round of grant funding competition

The U-M Precision Health Investigators Awards has released its request for applications for awards of up to $300,000 each over two years to support research projects that advance the field of precision health. The initiative seeks projects that use and/or enrich U-M Precision Health data and tools, methods or techniques.

U-M Precision Health expects to fund up to 12 Investigators Awards in 2018 and will fund additional new projects in 2019. The awards are open to U-M full-time faculty members with a primary appointment in research, instructional (tenure) or clinical tracks. A second grants program, the U-M Precision Health Scholars Awards, which is designed specifically to support early-career investigators (post-docs, graduate students, residents and trainees), will be announced later this month.

The Investigators Awards program employs a two-stage application process. An open call for preproposals has been issued, and those preproposals are due April 30.

Following evaluation by a panel of faculty with expertise in precision health topics, a subset of entries will be selected and PIs invited to submit full proposals in June.

Especially encouraged are proposals with one or more of the following characteristics:

• Clearly advance work in the area of precision health and addressing biological advances, diagnostics, therapeutics, analytics, software/programming including artificial intelligence, machine learning, sensors, or related innovative areas.

• Use U-M Precision Health data sets and/or analytic tools or create new tools and/or expand the U-M Precision Health data set through additions to the cohort or novel data streams.

• Involve multidisciplinary collaboration by engaging investigators from two or more schools.

• Focus on pressing health problems, such as cancer, mental health, metabolic disease or opioid misuse prevention.

• Generate new data or capabilities that will be of value to and shared with a broad range of the U-M Precision Health community.

• Demonstrate strength in the qualifications and experience of the investigator(s) and propensity to lead to externally funded project(s).

• Draw in external partners who extend and complement U-M funding and capabilities.

Find complete information about and apply for the Investigators Awards by clicking here.