Next Issue Date: November 25, 2024
Next Application Due Date: January 6, 2025 by 11:59 pm ET
Next Grant Selection Notification: By May 7, 2025
Period of Performance: 1 year
Amount of Grant: $40,000 – $50,000 per grant

The Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators is our career development grant that supports early career investigators dedicated to focusing their research on basic, translational, clinical, or population sleep and circadian science.

This opportunity provides seed funding for mentored research projects to jumpstart an early career investigator’s research career and provide the necessary support and resources needed to establish a track record of funding. There are several categories for applications, including pediatric sleep, using the National Sleep Research Resource, and an option for general topics.

The following individuals are eligible to apply:

  • Individuals with an MD, DO, DDS, DMD, DNP, DNSc, PharmD, PhD, or equivalent professional degree.
  • Individuals within 10 years of their terminal degree, post-doctoral training, or clinical training.
  • US and international applicants are eligible to apply.

The following individuals are not eligible to apply:

  • Individuals who have received independent research funding of more than $250,000 are not eligible to apply. This does not apply to post-doctoral/ fellowship level training grants primarily covering the applicant’s salary (e.g., NRSAs).
  • Individuals who have a financial conflict of interest or have the potential to incur significant financial benefit from the proposed work and beyond the work itself are not eligible to apply.
  • Current AASM and AASM Foundation Board of Directors members are not eligible to apply and cannot be listed as a PI, co-PI, key personnel, mentor (paid or unpaid) or paid consultant for one year after their term ends.

Note: In rare instances, AASM and AASM Foundation Board members may serve as unpaid consultants on an application, however, this requires Executive Committee approval prior to submitting the application.

The Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators supports early career investigators dedicated to focusing their research on basic, translational, clinical, or population sleep and circadian science. This grant provides seed funding for mentored research projects to jumpstart an early career investigator’s research career and provide the necessary support and resources needed to establish a track record of funding.

 Research Focus

The Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators is open to mentored, general and specific topical projects that that address one or more important unanswered scientific questions related to sleep and circadian science, sleep disorders, and/or sleep health. The applicant must select one of the following topics.

General: Open to mentored projects that address one or more important unanswered scientific questions related to sleep, sleep disorders and/or sleep health.

Madeleine Grigg-Damberger Grant for Pediatric Sleep: Open to mentored projects that address one or more important unanswered scientific questions related to pediatric sleep, sleep disorders and/or sleep health.

National Sleep Research Resource: Open to mentored projects that use the National Sleep Research Resource and address one or more important unanswered scientific questions related to sleep and/or sleep disorders.

 Mentoring

Since this is a Career Development Grant for early career investigators, individuals must identify a research mentor in the application with the skills, knowledge, and resources to provide mentorship to the applicant in sleep and circadian research. Applicants are encouraged to identify more than one mentor (i.e., a mentoring team) if expert advice is needed in all aspects of the project. In such cases, a primary mentor must be clearly identified in the application. The applicant must work with the mentor(s) to prepare the application.

 Number of Applications and Scientific Overlap

Individuals may apply for multiple AASM Foundation grants, however, the same proposal (i.e., projects with budgetary and scientific overlap) may not be submitted for multiple requests for applications in a given cycle. Additionally, if an individual submits more than one application in a given Career Development Grant cycle, the AASM Foundation will only approve funding one grant should multiple proposals submitted by the applicant receive a competitive score.

Individuals who are the Principal Investigator on an open AASM Foundation research grant at the time of the application deadline can apply if they can demonstrate that there is no budgetary or scientific overlap between their open grant and the new project they are applying for funding. If there is budgetary and/or scientific overlap between projects, the applicant must indicate their plan to close their open grant in the event their new application is selected for funding (e.g., relinquish the current grant or complete the current grant to start the new grant).

Additionally, individuals who are seeking funding from AASM Foundation research grants to support ongoing projects currently funded by another granting body or supplement ongoing work (e.g., enrolling additional subjects into an ongoing trial) are not eligible to apply. The principal investigator will be required to make a statement regarding any overlap in their Other Support page of the application.

 Resubmission Policy

Past applicants of the Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators who were not funded are allowed a single resubmission within 12 months of receipt of the original application notification.

If resubmitting an original and unfunded application, the applicant must still meet all eligibility criteria listed under the Eligibility section of this request for applications. The resubmission must include a response to the reviewer’s critique and a response to the original application’s reviewers.

 Resubmission of an original application for one grant program across another grant program is not permitted.

The Focused Projects Grant for Junior Investigators provides funds for one year and can be for up to $40,000 – $50,000 per grant, depending on the research focus. There are no restrictions on the distribution of expenses, however, indirect costs are capped at 8%. The grant is issued as a contract between the AASM Foundation and the grantee’s institution. A sample contract is available here.

General and National Sleep Research Resource: Up to $40,000 for 1 year, with indirect costs capped at 8%

  • Funded by AASM Foundation general funds.

Madeleine Grigg-Damberger Grant for Pediatric Sleep: Up to $50,000 for 1 year, with indirect costs capped at 8%

  • Funded by a generous donation from Madeleine Grigg-Damberger, MD

Note: Dr. Grigg-Damberger will not be involved in any aspect of designing, conducting, managing, or directing the applicant’s project. In addition, Dr. Grigg-Damberger will not be involved in the AASM Foundation’s grantmaking process, including the review process for applications, making funding recommendations or decisions, approving progress and final reports, and post-award requests (no-cost extensions, reallocation of funds, change in scope or personnel, etc.).

A grant review committee, appointed by the AASM Foundation Executive Committee, will evaluate and score all submitted applications. Factors that will be taken into consideration include:

  1. Significance: Strong scientific premise of planned research in addressing important problems or critical barriers needed to progress the sleep medicine field.
  2. Mentorship and Career Development: The planned mentorship and career development activities will facilitate the applicant’s success by filling gaps in their knowledge, skills, and abilities. The mentors and key personnel are well-suited to support the project and the applicant’s growth.
  3. Approach: Planned research (overall strategy, methodology, and analyses) is scientifically sound, plan addresses protection of human subjects from research risks and inclusion/exclusion of individuals justified (if applicable).
  4. Environment: Institutional support and availability of equipment and other physical resources for the planned research.

Only materials submitted within the application will be used in the evaluation of applications. The AASM Foundation Executive Committee will make final funding decisions based on the scientific grant review committee scores and critiques.

Payment #1 – Upon execution of contract 90%
Payment #2 – Upon receipt and approval of Final Report 10%

If unique circumstances are explained in the budget justification of the applicant’s proposal, the Board of Directors will consider requests for an alternate payment schedule, with a maximum variance of 10%.

Note: Once a contract is executed for the grant, reallocation of funds of <10% does not require approval.

Outcomes are an essential component of this grant. All proposals must identify the goals and appropriate outcome measures of the research. The outcomes should align with the goals and objectives stated in the applicant’s proposal for this grant. As such, the following deliverables are required:

  • The applicants must address the specific aims and any major modification requires AASM Foundation Board of Directors or Executive Committee approval.
  • The AASM Foundation expects that the research funded by this grant will lead to the publication of original research in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, and submission of an abstract to the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS) for presentation at the annual SLEEP meeting. The plan and costs for these deliverables must be stated in the application.
  • The applicant must submit progress and final reports during the project period and set deadlines, describing project activities and results, as outlined below. Failure to submit reports per the established schedule will result in withholding grant payments from the sponsoring organization and the grant recipient becoming ineligible to apply for future AASM Foundation funding until all outstanding reporting is up to date.

Progress Reports Every six months
Final Report Within 90 days of grant completion

The due dates for progress and final reports are established after a grant contract is executed between AASM Foundation and sponsoring organization.

If using human or animal subjects, the applicant will be responsible for obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Institutional Animal Care and use Committee (IACUC) approval. The IRB or IACUC letter of approval for the specified project must be on file with the AASM Foundation office prior to the execution of the contract. No funds will be released for the project without receipt of written approval by an IRB or IACUC. Failure to obtain IRB or IACUC approval will result in retraction of the grant.

Frequently asked questions for our grant programs can be found here.

Eligibility questions may need to be reviewed by a member of the AASM Foundation Executive Committee, so please allow for at least a 1-week response time for eligibility questions. For all other inquiries, please allow a minimum of two business days for a response. Please note that questions received within 48 hours of an application deadline may not be answered before the deadline.