ADI Team Funding Initiative
2017 Application deadline is now CLOSED.
At the spring Alberta Diabetes Institute Member's Retreat held in May 2016, one of the most recurring themes echoed by the participants was the desire for the Institute to play a more active role in securing funding for its diabetes researchers. By helping identify 'specific opportunities' and by helping to 'pull teams together' that matched these opportunities, members felt the Institute could both establish 'targets for success' and help channel more funding to its members. This role for the Institute was deemed important in light of the challenges facing many of our researchers in their efforts to acquire funding. In response to this, the Institute is embarking on a Team Funding Initiative, which in essence will involve:
- Identifying key research themes and teams poised for success
- Using this to leverage funding from donors and investors
As a first step we want your ideas on what you consider to be key research themes that hold promise for preventing and overcoming diabetes. Equally important though, they should be themes where we have the expertise and resources to make us well-positioned to meet those challenges. Combining these elements will allow us to work on your behalf to pursue opportunities for significant, targeted investment from donors, government, industry and other partners.
Key research themes should reflect broad and ambitious goals that are key to beating diabetes. Examples being:
- early detection or intervention of T1D or T2D
- islet cell replacement/regeneration therapies
- mitigating secondary diseases
- detecting and managing metabolic disorders
- subpopulation risk management
These research themes should be related to the strength of your proposed team and why that makes it well-positioned for significant, translational success towards practical application.
The Institute will continue to work in partnership with the Alberta Diabetes Foundation to secure funding for important discovery research and trainee development, as well as other traditional funding agencies will continue to be important sources of funding. But the Alberta Diabetes Institute Team Initiative is aimed at packaging specific strengths and team approaches towards targeted goals that the Institute can use to attract investment from other sources.
Translational research isn't possible without involvement from every facet of research from cell biology to health outcomes, so we are seeking every member's opinion. Please provide your ideas for the ADI Team Funding Initiative by February 1, 2017, in a brief document that outlines the research challenge, the proposed team and the main objectives. For further information please contact the Alberta Diabetes Institute office.
We look forward to receiving your ideas and working on your behalf to open up new opportunities.