UW Center for AIDS and STD

CFAS New Collaboration Grants

We are excited to announce the availability of New Collaboration Grants (NCGs) from the UW Center for AIDS & STD. The application deadline for the 2023-2024 CFAS NCGs was November 15, 2023. Check back for future NCG application opportunities.

Please see our New Collaboration Grant Award Recipients.

 

The purpose of this grant program is to foster new collaborations and research between University of Washington (UW) faculty, particularly junior faculty, and health department HIV/STI programs, health care organizations, and other organizations and agencies working in the area of HIV/STI in Washington State.  These collaborations should seek to augment the HIV/STI control infrastructure of the State and to improve the health of Washington State residents through enhanced public health practice, clinical services, and/or research. The grant program will fund 1-2 projects for 12 months.  Priority will be given to projects that focus on or include areas of Washington State that are outside of King County, WA.

Eligibility

  • Current University of Washington (UW) faculty (including acting positions)
  • UW senior post-doctoral fellows or scientists initiating a new area of work that will lead to longer-term collaborations
  • Junior faculty being recruited to the UW

Note that the award may be mentored or independent depending on the career stage of the investigator.  Applicants are allowed to submit only one application to this program per cycle.

Types of Projects

Projects must be undertaken as collaborations between UW faculty and a local health department, the WA State Department of Health, a healthcare organization, community-based organization, or another agency working in the area of HIV/STI in Washington State.  The program can support diverse activities designed to advance the health of Washington State residents in the area of HIV/STI. This can include research, public health, or clinical programmatic work designed to improve the epidemiologic basis for public health practice, improve clinical systems of care, or otherwise improve HIV/STI prevention and control. Proposed projects should seek to create new, long-term collaborations, ideally with the potential to attract new external funding. Potential topics of interest include but are not limited to 1) increasing the availability, uptake, and frequency of HIV/STI testing; 2) increasing the availability, use, and sustained use of PrEP among persons at high-risk for HIV infection; 3) increasing engagement in care and successful treatment among persons with HIV infection; 4) increasing the availability and use of condoms to persons at-risk for HIV/STI; and 5) developing clinical infrastructure to improve care for populations that are disproportionately impacted by HIV/STI; 6) innovations to improve the control of the current syphilis epidemic in Washington State.  Some recommendations for activities to improve HIV/STI public health cand clinical care are available in the 2018 BREE Collaborative report and 2022 STI and Hepatitis B Legislative Advisory Group Recommendations.

Reporting requirements

Principal Investigators (PIs) funded through this program will be required to produce a one-page mid-year report describing their progress achieving the project’s goals, preliminary data (if available), and barriers to the project’s completion with plans for overcoming identified barriers.  PIs will also produce a final project report presenting project outcomes.  Projects that include epidemiologic analyses or the provision of clinical services should report numeric outcome data.  All projects should report major accomplishments and plans for future related work, if any.

Budget Guidelines

Awards will be up to $50,000 (direct costs) per year for up to 12 months. Non-personnel costs are allowable but may not exceed 30% of the budget (up to $15,000).  Projects with subcontracts must include subcontractor indirect costs as part of the direct cost budget.  A detailed and complete budget and budget justification must be provided for subcontracts.  Requested support for equipment and technology, including computers, must be fully justified in the budget justification with a clear connection to the scientific aspects of the project and not for general office use.  Applicants do not need to submit an eGC-1 or institutional signature on their application.  Questions about budget guidelines should be directed to cfas@uw.edu.

Review Criteria

  • Impact and scientific merit of the proposal, including the likelihood that the project will improve the health of Washington State residents and advance public health practice locally, nationally and internationally.
  • Significance – Does the project address an important problem related to HIV/STI? If the aims of the project are achieved, will the project improve the health of WA State residents and advance our knowledge related to HIV/STI prevention and control?
  • Investigators and proposed collaboration – Are the PI, mentor(s), and collaborators well suited to the project? Does the proposal clearly demonstrate a commitment between UW faculty and a collaborating health department, health care organization, other HIV/STI public health focused agency, or community-based organization?
  • Innovation – Does the project employ concepts, approaches, or methods that are novel in the current public health environment? Is the proposed collaboration new?  Because this program is not exclusively focused on research, we define innovation to include new collaborative relationships or areas of collaboration that capitalize on the expertise of UW faculty to improve HIV/STI prevention and control.
  • Approach – Are the conceptual framework, methods, and analyses adequately developed, well integrated, and appropriate to the aims of the project? Does the applicant acknowledge potential problem areas and consider alternatives?
  • Impact of project on the long-term public health infrastructure of WA State – Will the proposed project help develop an improved infrastructure for the prevention and control of HIV/STI? This infrastructure can include improved analytic capacity within a collaborating entity, improved capacity to provide clinical or prevention services, or other activities that will advance a collaborating entity’s ability to impact the health of Washington State residents.

Questions on the next application cycle can be sent to the Center for AIDS and STD at cfas@uw.edu.