CanLyme Venture Grants
The Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation Venture Grants Program, initiated in 2013, supports research on Lyme and associated tick-borne diseases. The Foundation’s goal is to increase knowledge and understanding of borrelioses in Canada, and to support high quality, patient-focused, research.
Focus and eligibility
Our primary focus is research that has potential application to human illness. Researchers from Canadian universities are particularly encouraged to apply. Non-citizens of Canada are eligible to receive grant support from this program, but the research has to be carried out at a Canadian Institution.
The maximum annual amount that will be awarded as a student stipend is $10,000, renewable on application for extension for up to a total of two years for an MSc student, postdoc or other researcher, and up to three years for a PhD student, contingent on adequate progress as determined by both the researcher’s supervisory committee and the Board of the Foundation.
Requirements
Grants applications are accepted at any time. Funds may be used to pay for direct costs of research, such as student stipends, lab consumables and minor equipment. Overhead or indirect costs are not eligible for Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation funds.
Successful applicants are required to submit annual reports for the duration of the funding, and are requested to submit a digital photo related to the research for posting on the Canadian Lyme Disease Foundation website. Financial support by the Foundation should be acknowledged in resulting publications.
Assessment
Grants shall be assessed on the relevance of the research to Lyme disease patients, scientific quality of the research proposal, the probability that it will lead to peer-reviewed scientific publications, the appropriateness of the proposed budget and the academic standing and research capability of the applicant.
Applications shall be forwarded to two to three reviewers external to the Board of the Foundation. Reviewers are encouraged to use an assessment rubric that generates a numerical score that can allow leveraging of provincial and federal funding opportuniteis. Final decisions on awards will be by majority vote of the Board of the Foundation.
Two streams
Venture Grants are of two forms: (1) Partial stipends for students and post-docs for studies at an accredited Canadian university and (2) financial support for research expenses.
Application instructions
The application process is initiated with a letter of intent (LOI) initially. The LOI is intended to inform us whether the goals of the proposed research project correspond adequately to the overall goals of the Venture Grant program. The LOI format is flexible but should identify the researchers and research team members, describe the goals and broad methodology of the project, and provide an approximate budget. On acceptance of the LOI, the application forms will be emailed.
Brief instructions for the Venture Grant application are: The application should include a statement of goals, brief literature review, methods to be used, and anticipated results. An appraisal of potential challenges, with a description of alternate approaches that could be used as problems arise, is recommended.
The application should include a detailed budget and a timeline for proposed activities, and include information on other sources of funding for the project, received or applied for.
The Foundation will release CanLyme grants policy funds only once co-funding has been secured in cases where full funding is required for the project. Applications should also include an academic CV for the researcher(s), including brief annotations giving the relevance of prior publications.
Researchers using animal or human subjects must adhere to guidelines for animal care and ethics approval of their institution. If ethics approval is required for the study, a letter of approval from the institution’s ethics board must be secured before the Foundation will release its funds.
Please send an LOI or a request for further information to:
Grants [at] CanLyme [dot] com