Mentored Research Development Award Program (MRDA)
Program Goal
The principal goal of the MRDA program is to improve the success rate for grant submissions by junior faculty. To accomplish this objective, MRDA recipients (MRDA Scholars) will work with their chosen mentor(s) to achieve milestones associated with the preparation of a targeted grant application. To assure highly-competitive grant submissions, MRDA Scholars will also take advantage of extensive ACCEL resources. These include grant writing workshops, peer mentoring groups, grant review sessions, support from the Professional Development Core (PD Core), and biostatistics and study design consultations with experts from the ACCEL Biostatistic Epidemiology and Research Design (BERD) Core.
MRDAs support awardees by releasing them from non-research responsibilities (e.g., clinical work, teaching, administration) and/or providing minimal funding to allow for participation in defined activities associated with writing and submitting a competitive grant proposal. At the end of the MRDA period, awardees are required to submit a fully- developed grant proposal to one of the following mechanisms:
- IDeA Program Pilot Grants (e.g., CTR, COBRE, INBRE, CTSA, ISPCTN);
- NIH; PCORI; AHRQ; other federal agency;
- A well-recognized grant-issuing foundation or organization (AHA, ACS, etc.).
MRDA Submission and Review Timeline
Due Date | Action |
April 4, 2022 | Letter of Intent due |
May 16, 2022 | Proposals are due for Mentoring Oversight Committee review |
June 7, 2022 | Additional information requests are sent to applicants to clarify budget requests (if needed) |
June 17, 2022 | Funding decisions will be made by the Executive Committee and awardees will be announced |
August 15, 2022 (Cohort 1) or January 1, 2023 (Cohort 2) | MRDA Scholars will be admitted to the MRDA program; scholars may begin work |
(Specific dates for each cohort to be announced) | Mandatory orientation for MRDA Scholars via Blue Jeans |
(Specific dates for each cohort to be arranged) | Start of six session grant preparation class |
June 30, 2023 | Work on all MRDAs must be completed |