Weston Family Foundation Rapid Response 2024 Program

Eligibility

For this program, the Institute is only able to accept LOIs and Proposals from institutions (or individuals affiliated with and applying through or on behalf of institutions) that are Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) qualified donees located in Canada. Applicants may appear in any role on any number of applications.

• Eligible Principal Applicants must be a researcher working in Canada at least 50% of the time and hold a position at or above the level of Assistant Professor or equivalent at a CRA qualified donee institution located in Canada.
• Co-applicants must be at the post-doctoral level or above and working at a CRA qualified donee institution located in Canada.
• Collaborators must be at the post-doctoral level or above and can be working outside of Canada

Summary

The Weston Family Foundation aims to catalyze and scale science-based approaches to significantly improve the health and well-being of Canadians. The Foundation takes a leadership role in tackling large problems that are under-addressed by supporting research that is particularly relevant to the health of Canadians and that empowers Canadians to improve their health and wellbeing.

The Foundation, through its Weston Brain Institute is pleased to announce the re-launch of our flagship Rapid Response program designed to provide seed funding to catalyze novel, high-risk, high-reward translational research that accelerates the development of therapeutics or tools for neurodegenerative diseases of aging.

Program details:

Eligible projects should:

• Be translational research that can accelerate therapeutic or tool development for neurodegenerative diseases of aging (NDAs), as defined by the Institute.
  • Therapeutics should address unmet needs in the prevention, treatment and/or symptomatic management of NDAs.
  • Tools should address challenges in translational research to accelerate the development and/or clinical implementation of therapeutics for NDAs (e.g., biomarkers, drug delivery systems). Projects covering only the discovery/identification of a tool are considered out of scope.
• Have preliminary data to support the hypothesis and feasibility of the project.

Grant guidelines available here

Overhead

Not applicable

Pre-application deadlines

RSO internal deadline

Pre-application program deadline

Application deadlines

Program application deadline

NOTE: Consult your Faculty Associate Dean (Research) (ADR) regarding Faculty-specific deadlines and submission processes.

Principal Investigators: Complete a Research Management System (RMS) record, including a copy of your complete application, and submit this for approvals in RMS.

Postdocs, students, and trainees: For fellowships and externally-sponsored research training awards or opportunities, you must complete the Research Funding Application Approval (RFAA) Trainee PDF form, and submit it, along with a complete copy of the application, to Research Services at rsotrainee@ucalgary.ca. Trainees should not use RMS at this time.

Approvals: The University of Calgary requires that all funding applications be approved prior to submission. Approval requires signatures via either RMS or the RFAA Trainee form, in the following order:

• Principal Investigator
• Department Head
• Faculty ADR/Dean
• Research Services (on behalf of the Vice-President Research)

Read the Meaning of Grant Signatures policy to understand what your approval means. Please see the agency guidelines for details about which signatures are required on your application, as it may differ from internal requirements.

Late submissions: Late submissions will only be accepted in cases of medical or family emergencies, or other exceptional circumstances. If you submit your RMS record to Research Services after the internal deadline has passed, you must secure additional approvals. Please read: Late Applications Process.

LOI Stage:

1. Complete LOI application on the Weston Foundation Online application portal. A sample LOI application can be found here.
2. Upload a copy of your final and complete LOI application to the RMS Application record, and submit for academic approvals.  Please ensure that you allow enough time for academic approvals prior to the Research Services (RSO) final internal deadline of NOON, April 25, 2024.
3. RMS will notify you that institutional approval has been provided and will provide any institutional signatures if required. You may now submit on or before April 30, 2024 at 12:00PM Mountain time.

For Full Application:

Full proposal application is by invitation only. Deadline is currently unknown