Health Sciences Round 2015

The M. J. Murdock Charitable Trust seeks to enrich the quality of life in the Pacific Northwest by providing grants and enrichment programs to non-profit organizations that seek to strengthen the region's educational, spiritual, and cultural base in creative and sustainable ways.

The Trust offers a round-robin grant opportunity method wherein the UW may apply for grants alternating among the Health Sciences, Engineering, and other Upper Campus departments/colleges. Within the current Health Sciences round, grants are limited to basic and clinical research in the biomedical sciences, and funds should be requested primarily for research equipment purchase or construction. Proposals should address critical priorities of regional or national significance, and should directly impact the work of a community of researchers, meaning that proposals must be for equipment that will benefit multiple research groups. The Trust favors programs that have substantial funding from other sources, and the potential to thrive beyond the initial stage of funding.

Requests should range from $300,000 to $500,000 (and may be spread over two years) for equipment for research in basic and clinical research in biomedical sciences. Construction of equipment, including scientific software, is allowed, as long as a tangible and substantial research tool is created. The Trust considers matching and/or leveraging important, and requests must include a plan for an institutional cost share of at least half the total budget from federal, departmental and/or other university sources, or from other foundations. (Firm matching commitments are not required at the pre-proposal stage. Faculty time is not allowed as matching.) A new feature of Trust research equipment proposals is the ability to request up to 12% over the cost of the equipment as monies to seed new research projects and to attract new users. This portion of the budget does not require cost sharing. The Trust does not pay indirect costs.

Proposals should clearly identity the kinds of scientific advances that will be made possible by the equipment, why existing equipment is not adequate to accomplish the research, the primary users (key faculty users and their departmental affiliations), basic information on where the equipment will be located, how it will be maintained, and any additional resources that are available to support it. (As noted above, we do not require firm matching commitments at this time, but do need to understand the environment that is available to support the proposed instrumentation).

Application Instructions

Please submit:

1. A two- to three-page letter of intent with a list of all anticipated investigators, description of proposed aims and approach

2. Basic budget

3. Biosketch or CV of the PI

4. A letter of support from the Dean or Chair

to research@uw.edu by 5:00 PM Wednesday, October 1, 2014. The approved proposal will be due to the sponsor on 1/1/15, with submission coordinated by UW Corporate and Foundation Relations.