Clinical Research Investigator-Initiated Awards

Below, you'll find guidelines for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation’s Clinical Research Investigator-Initiated Awards (CRIA), which include Career Development Awards (CDA) and Senior Research Awards (SRA).

Objective: To directly impact patient care by addressing an important clinical question by studying people either through direct interaction with the people and/or indirectly by studying people through large databases, such as claims data or administrative data. Therefore, the expectation is that the research findings from funded CRIAs will result in highly-cited publications, citations in clinical guidelines, and/or follow-on funding to advance the research further.

Priority will be given to proposals that address the priorities outlined in the Pragmatic Clinical Research publication within the Challenges in IBD Research, and how the results would impact prevailing practice in this area. There needs to be a compelling clinical rationale to justify a focus outside of these priority areas.

Applicant Eligibility: PI and Co-PI must be employed by institutions (public non-profit, private non-profit, or government) engaged in health care and/or health related research. International applicants are also eligible to apply, and there are no geographical restrictions regarding research site locations.

• Senior Research Award (CRIA-SRA): The lead PI must be a faculty member (minimum Assistant Professor level) with a successful track record of funded clinical research projects (preferably NIH‐funded) and relevant expertise in the clinical question to be addressed. NOTE: For CRIA-SRA applicants only, we are no longer requiring for the research team to include at least one junior Co-PI (Instructor or Assistant Professor, prior to receiving an independent R01 grant or international equivalent) with experience in IBD research, who is committed to IBD research as a part of his or her career development.
• Career Development Award (CRIA-CDA): *The Foundation is sensitive to personal matters that impact career trajectories. Applicants who have taken leave from their career (e.g., parenting of a child, childbirth, long-term care of a parent/spouse/child/dependent, personal health issues), or have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in a way that puts them outside of the eligibility time frame, should feel free to reach out to Foundation staff ahead of their application submission. We aim to be flexible and adjust these time frames if necessary and appropriate. This can be captured in the applicant's cover letter.* The lead PI must be a junior faculty member (Instructor or Assistant Professor, prior to receiving an independent R01 grant or international equivalent) with experience in IBD research, who is committed to IBD research as a part of his or her career development. Generally, junior PI candidates should not be more than ten years beyond the attainment of their doctoral degree at the time of application.

Proposal Eligibility: Proposed study matches the scope of the program, as described in the RFP, and eligibility criteria are met. Only one proposal may be submitted per submission date. Applicants for a CRIA-CDA may not simultaneously apply or be included in an application for a CRIA-SRA. CRIA-CDA and CRIA-SRA applications will compete for the same funding. Applicants for a CRIA may not simultaneously submit another application on the same research topic for a Litwin IBD Pioneer award, Clinical Research Network Award or Research Initiative. Successful applicants may not hold concurrent Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation CDAs or SRAs; however, applications for new projects may be submitted 6 months prior to the termination of the awardee’s current grant.

Grant Funding Terms: The maximum budget request: $250,000/year in total costs (10% IDC maximum allowed), for three years. The Foundation will no longer accept requests from applicants to exceed this budgetary threshold. The total budget can be requested for up to three years. Specific milestones will be agreed upon as part of the funding process, and continued funding is dependent on achieving these milestones, which will be reviewed scientifically and administratively.

New Opportunity for Foundation Awardees to Access IBD Plexus!

The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation is pleased to inform researchers applying for its Clinical Research Investigator-Initiated Awards (CRIA) that they may gain access at no cost to the biosamples and/or research-ready datasets housed within IBD Plexus as part of a newly funded CRIA research project. Interested investigators must contact IBD Plexus team to confirm data availability and feasibility at least 1 month prior to your submission.

IBD Plexus™ was founded by the Foundation with a mission to advance science, accelerate progress towards precision medicine and improve the care of patients living with IBD. The multi-component IBD Plexus includes a biobank, pediatric and adult patient clinical data, patient-reported data, linked genetic and other molecular data and biosamples, central reference labs to generate molecular data (genetic, transcriptomic, microbiomic, etc.) from existing biosamples, as well as a data and analytical platform to house, organize, aggregate, and provide data for research.

Requests for biosamples must also be submitted to the IBD Plexus Academic Request for Proposals (RFP). Investigators who choose to convert biosamples to molecular data as part of their research proposal can use CRIA funds to help defray those costs. Most molecular data generation is done at IBD Plexus central reference laboratories to promote standardization and the ability to pool results. Further, IBD Plexus functions under the guiding principle that researchers who take advantage of the resources will also contribute back the raw data (not the analyses) they derive from patient biosamples.

For more details about IBD Plexus data and samples, please review the guidelines.

The Foundation uses the Proposal Central system for all grant submissions. Just select the program to which you are applying. All instructions and policies are available at this site. For matters related to pre- and post-award management for the Clinical Research Investigator-Initiated Awards, please contact N'Dea Johnson. For all other questions: [email protected]

Application Deadlines: Before submitting a Pre-Application or a Full Proposal, please view the Clinical Research Investigator-Initiated Award instructions and policies.