Award Focus
The purpose of this program is to encourage the development of researchers in child health by awarding small grants to new researchers, helping them gain a foothold in this important area. The goal is to fund applicants who will go on to be independent investigators. The Fund will make up to 32 awards total with two funding cycles (16 awards each).
Research Interests
The Fund is open to a wide variety of research topics. We do not focus on a particular disease, but all our funded projects deal directly with children’s health.
In the Early Career Award Program, the Fund is particularly interested in applicants that show great potential to impact that field of children’s health through medical research. Both an applicant’s aptitude and inclination toward research are considered. The quality of the mentor and the mentoring relationship are also considered to be important predictors of success.
Eligibility
Those eligible to apply include:
1. Physicians who are in a residency/fellowship training program, or who completed that program no more than one year before the Concept Paper deadline.
2. Post-doctoral researchers who received the doctoral level degree no more than three years before the Concept Paper deadline.
We calculate eligibility by the year, ie. if you finished fellowship in July 2024 you are eligible to apply through all of 2025.
Extensions may be granted for parental, family, or medical leave. Please contact the fund to discuss your specific case.
While the award is open to all who are eligible, we especially hope to encourage applications from those in the United States who are part of underrepresented minority groups in research. More information can be found at https://www.thrasherresearch.org/diversity.
There are no restrictions with regard to citizenship. The Fund is open to applications from institutions both inside and outside the United States. These eligibility guidelines were developed from the prospective of a US training system, we are happy to discuss eligibility under different training systems and encourage applicants from outside the US to apply.
An applicant who is supported, or has been supported in the past, by a National Institutes of Health (NIH) K award (including a K12 award) or a Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) is not eligible to apply for the Early Career Award. An Investigator with an application pending for one of the above may apply to the Early Career Award Program, but if an award is received before the Thrasher full proposal submission deadline the application will be removed from consideration. If the award is received after the full proposal submission deadline you may keep both awards.
Each project needs to be under the guidance of a mentor. The qualifications and experience of the mentor will be considered in the evaluation of the application. A mentor may have only one Thrasher Research Fund Early Career Awardee at a time.
Selection Criteria
Applicant
Applicants who excel in this category have demonstrated commitment to a research career that will find solutions to children’s health problems. These applicants should demonstrate the potential to eventually become independent principal investigators.
This is judged in part by
Publication record relative to where the applicant is in training
The applicant’s role in developing the research project
Prior funding, grants, and recognitions
Mentor
This is judged in part by
History of successful funding
Publication record
Expertise in the topical area
Mentoring track-record
History of working with the applicant
Research Question
All applications are expected to have a novel, scientifically sound, hypothesis-driven approach. Projects should be feasibly accomplished between 1-2 years.
Distance to Applicability
In the Discovery/Development/Delivery paradigm, most of our grants fall into the Development category, though excellent applicants in the Discovery and Delivery categories are occasionally funded.
Discovery: Mechanisms and pathways, biomarker target identification, gene identification, descriptive ‘-omics
Development: Therapeutics, interventions, diagnostics, clinically relevant biomarker validation
Delivery: Implementation science, operations research, health services, quality improvement.
Medical Problem
Both the incidence and severity of the children’s health problem are considered, including the resources and treatments already available to the problem.
Potential Impact
The line of research ultimately has the potential to meaningfully advance the field. Positive results will significantly improve child health, address an important research gap, and be widely translatable.
Should I Apply
While no applicants are perfect in all areas, successful applicants typically excel in most of the selection criteria listed above. Unsuccessful applications are usually weak in multiple areas. An audit of our previous concept paper submissions shows that the primary reasons for rejection were a combination of a longer distance to clinical applicability and either a weaker applicant or an unclear pathway to impact.
We do fund a limited number of proposals with a longer distance to impact, but the applicants and mentors are excellent and the research has a clear pathway to impact child health.
Application Deadlines
There will be two cycles each year with up to 16 applications awarded in each cycle. Cycles follow the same general timelines every year.
Link: https://www.thrasherresearch.org/early-career-award?lang=eng
