The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation is the largest non-government, donor-supported organization that distributes funds for psychiatric brain and behavior disorder research. The Foundation’s NARSAD Young Investigator Grant (YI) program offers up to $35,000 a year for up to two (2) years to enable promising investigators to either extend their research fellowship training or to begin careers as independent research faculty.

The program is intended to facilitate innovative research opportunities and supports basic, as well as translational and/or clinical investigators. All research must be relevant to our understanding, treatment and prevention of serious psychiatric disorders such as: schizophrenia; bipolar; mood and anxiety disorders; or early onset brain and behavior disorders.

Global Affairs Canada is testing a new type of call—a call for preliminary proposals. This is a two-stage process whereby applicants are invited to provide a preliminary proposal (eight pages maximum), outlining a project idea within a specific template. Based on a review of the submissions received, Global Affairs Canada will invite a limited number of organizations to expand their preliminary proposals into full proposals for assessment and possible funding.

Depending on the proposals received, Global Affairs Canada may fund any number of proposals, or none, up to the maximum funding available.

This call for preliminary proposals has two streams:

1. Open call: Projects valued at between Can$3 million and Can$12 million over three to six years and open to Canadian and non-Canadian organizations, including Palestinian, international NGOs, multilateral and private-sector organizations, but excluding government institutions.
2. Local call: Projects valued at between Can$150,000 and Can$200,000 over two to four years and open to Palestinian NGOs, including private-sector organizations, but excluding government institutions.

You must submit your preliminary proposal to this call before the deadline. Late submissions will not be accepted. Be sure to review the instructions in “How to apply for funding through the West Bank and Gaza Call for Preliminary Proposals” before beginning your application.

Under this call, your project idea must contribute to the achievement of the following ultimate outcome:

• Enhanced economic empowerment and increased prosperity for low-income women and/or female and male youth in the West Bank and Gaza.

Further, in order to be considered under this call, your proposal must include the following intermediate outcome statement:

• Reduced barriers to entrepreneurship, employment and/or employability faced by women and/or youth, in particular female youth.

Applicants may also choose to use one or two of the following intermediate outcome statements:

• Enhanced opportunities for decent and productive employment for women.
• Enhanced opportunities for decent and productive employment for youth, in particular female youth.
• Enhanced opportunities for women entrepreneurs to successfully establish and/or grow a sustainable business.
• Enhanced opportunities for youth entrepreneurs, particularly young women, to successfully establish and/or grow a sustainable business.

The New Investigator Research Grants in Child and Youth Health is expected to:

Provide important early career development support to child health researchers and enhance the grant recipient's ability to compete with more senior investigators for research grants from other funders.

New Investigator Research Grants in Child and Youth Health is a jointly sponsored program of SickKids Foundation and the CIHR - Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health (IHDCYH). Grant recipients may obtain up to three years' support for research in biomedical, clinical, health systems and services, population and public health sectors.

The pre-proposal submission (LOI) deadline to the JPND Joint Call Secretariat is 23:59 (C.E.T) on the 6th of March, 2017.

The aim of the call is to establish a limited number of ambitious, innovative, multi-national and multi-disciplinary collaborative research projects that:

• Combine experimental approaches from fundamental, pre-clinical and/or clinical research;
• Perform network analyses in different neurodegenerative and/or other chronic diseases to elucidate the underlying mechanisms common and differing in the investigated diseases;
• Will add value to existing research by analysing diseases across traditional clinical boundaries, technologies and disciplines, thereby gaining deeper understanding of the patho-physiological mechanisms of neurodegenerative diseases.

The Banting Research Foundation and DMRF Canada are pleased to announce a two-year funding partnership to support research by early career investigators focused on areas relevant to dystonia, a neurological movement disorder impacting more than 50,000 Canadians.

The goal of the DMRF Canada’s Science Program is to support the discovery of new or improved therapies and, ultimately, a cure for dystonia. To achieve this goal, the DMRF is dedicated to supporting the field of dystonia research and stimulating the collaborations and projects necessary to accelerate progress.

The Banting Research Foundation Discovery Award supported by DMRF Canada is a one-year grant of up to $25,000 per year that will support research related to the causes, mechanisms, prevention, and treatments which could potentially enable medical breakthroughs and transformative health care advances to find a cure for dystonia.

Eligible candidates must be focused on research that will address one or more of the core directions necessary to advance the field of dystonia. These core directions include furthering our fundamental understanding of dystonia, uncovering the mechanisms in the nervous system that lead to symptoms, creating experimental models of dystonia, and discovering targets for new and improved therapeutics designed specifically to treat dystonia. This includes hypothesis-driven research projects at the genetic, molecular, cellular, systems, or behavioral levels that may lead to a better understanding of the pathophysiology or to new therapies for any or all forms of dystonia.

The Banting Research Foundation Discovery Award supported by DMRF Canada will be awarded through the grant program of the Banting Research Foundation with input from the DMRF Medical Advisory Committee.

Eligible applicants must be in the first three years of an academic appointment at a university or research institute in Canada. For complete guidelines and application instructions, see:
www.bantingresearchfoundation.ca/grants/guidelines/

Application deadline: March 15, 2017

The principal goal of the Alport Syndrome Foundation, Inc. (ASF), Pedersen Family and The Kidney Foundation of Canada (KFOC) Funding Program is to find novel treatments to prevent kidney failure and hearing loss in all patients with Alport Syndrome. 

Types of Proposals Sought

Research proposals with the potential to accelerate the development of new treatments to prolong kidney function and prevent hearing loss including:

·        Identification and investigation of target pathways in disease progression

·        Drug repurposing or other novel approaches to improve the current standard of care.

There are no geographical limitations of this funding.

Funding
It is anticipated that two research projects will be selected for funding, totaling $100,000 USD each, over a one- to two-year timeframe. Successful applicants will be notified in June 2017 in accordance with the ASF, Pedersen Family, KFOC Alport Syndrome Research Funding Program.

Process
Research proposals will be evaluated by an independent peer review process.  Applications should be of 10–15 pages in length and must be in accordance with the instructions in the ASF, Pedersen Family, KFOC Alport Syndrome Research Funding Program.

Deadline
The deadline for submission of completed research funding applications is Monday, March 20, 2017 by 5:00 pm Arizona Time/MST (no late submittals will be accepted).

For Additional Information, go to www.alportsyndrome.org or Contact:

Sharon Lagas

Board President, Alport Syndrome Foundation, Inc.
Telephone:  1-480-800-3510
Email:  research@alportsyndrome.org

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) is launching its next call for proposals under its Discovery Frontiers program. This round of funding will focus on Biodiversity and Adaptation of Biosystems.  Funding available is $1 million per year for four years.

Global habitats are changing at a faster pace than ever before through climate change, deforestation, ocean acidification, and overfishing. Canada and the world need to better understand natural and managed environments – from genes to ecosystems – and how they respond or adapt to complex changing conditions. To address this, the Discovery Frontiers funding will support a program that will be paradigm-shifting, transdisciplinary in nature, involve international collaboration, and foster new expertise and capacity.

Given the nature of the research to be supported through this call for proposals and in recognition that the ability to implement policy or directly apply the research results can depend on socio-economic considerations as well as scientific understanding, proposals may include collaboration and integration across several disciplines. Proposals requesting funds from NSERC can include aspects of social sciences and humanities, provided that the main focus remains within the natural sciences and engineering.

This is NSERC’s fourth call for proposals under Discovery Frontiers initiative. Previous calls have targeted northern earth systems research, new materials for clean energy and energy efficiency, and exploring big data science in genomics research.

The application begins with a Letter of Intent due no later than April 17, 2017.

To learn more about this call, visit our website.

Opportunities for international industry-academic R&D collaborations that have an impact in both Ontario and in China:

The Ontario-China Research and Innovation Fund (OCRIF) has a Call for Proposals open to projects that support scientific and technological collaboration projects between China and Ontario, with a current emphasis on biomaterials.

The Banting Research Foundation and the Rick Hansen Institute are pleased to announce a funding partnership to support research by early career investigators focused on areas relevant to spinal cord injury (SCI).

The human and economic costs of SCI are devastating. For the 86,000 Canadians who have spinal cord injuries, life is changed forever. SCI costs the Canadian economy more than $2.7 Billion annually, in health care costs and lost productivity.

The Banting Research Foundation/ Rick Hansen Institute Discovery Award is a one-year grant of up to $25,000 that will support research which could potentially enable medical breakthroughs and transformative health care advances to reduce the human and economic costs associated with SCI. Eligible candidates must be focused on research in one or more of the following areas relevant to SCI: paralysis, pressure ulcers, urinary tract infections, neuropathic pain, predictive preclinical models of evaluation, and spinal cord injury in Indigenous Peoples in Canada. Eligibility is not limited to those specializing in the field of SCI, but the research must be applicable to SCI. The Banting Research Foundation/ Rick Hansen Institute Discovery Award will be awarded through the grant program of the Banting Research Foundation.

Eligible applicants must be in the first three years of an academic appointment at a university or research institute in Canada. For complete guidelines and application instructions, see:

www.bantingresearchfoundation.ca/grants/guidelines/

Application deadline: March 15, 2017

Call for Proposals

Concept

Global Affairs Canada (GAC), in collaboration with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), is pleased to announce the second edition of the International Policy Ideas Challenge designed to identify concrete innovative solutions to emerging international policy challenges faced by Canada. The objective of the program is to draw on the network of talented Canadian graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and civil society researchers. Applicants are initially invited to submit brief proposals. Ten selected finalists will be given several months to further develop their proposals into policy briefs, which will then be presented to Government of Canada officials. They will be expected to present their research in a special day-long symposium, hosted by GAC in Ottawa in November 2017 on the margins of the Knowledge Summit, to be organized as part of SSHRC’s Imagining Canada’s Future initiative. The proceedings of the symposium will be disseminated by GAC with a disclaimer indicating that the presentations represent the views of the individual presenters. Participants may also be offered the opportunity to participate in a special session with emerging youth leaders at SSHRC’s Knowledge Summit.

Award

Ten winning projects will receive $3,000 each (regardless of whether the proposal is submitted by an individual or a team). The award will be made upon the submission of the final product to Global Affairs Canada. In addition to the award, travel expenses of up to $800 per project will be covered to facilitate the finalists’ participation in the presentation session and the SSHRC Knowledge Summit in Ottawa in November. A supplement may be available to researchers travelling long distances in order to partially offset the higher cost of airfare.