The NIH Proposal Academy is a year-long program designed to prepare participating faculty and researchers to become competitive and successful NIH grantees.
The deadline for applications is Wednesday, June 30.
The program, which is designed for new or early-career investigators, begins in the summer and includes an individually-assigned science mentor for every participant, and provides general coaching, proposal preparation/grantsmanship skills, and grant editing and graphics assistance. The process takes participants from developing solid, specific aims to full proposal preparation. They receive feedback throughout the process from a variety of mentors and coaches who themselves are highly active NIH researchers. Prior to actual submission to NIH, each proposal is internally reviewed and scored mimicking the NIH review process.
The Academy was created in 2018 and is jointly supported by funding from the UD Research Office, and DE-INBRE and DE-CTR ACCEL project grants. NIH Academy is open to faculty and researchers from UD, Nemours/Alfred I DuPont Hospital for Children, Christiana Care Health System, and Delaware State University.
Applicants are accepted into the program via a competitive process and chosen on the basis of their scientific ideas and publication/research record. The intellectual agenda for each year’s Academy is set by co-chairs for that year and therefore, participant’s experience might differ from year-to-year as program leaders customize the outcomes, resources, and specific needs of the participants.
Faculty and researchers interested in becoming part of the NIH Academy for the current year must submit an application when the portal opens around June of each year. Application submissions are preceded by an information session/webinar organized by UD Research Development Office for all those interested in applying.