Medical College of Wisconsin
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Comprehensive Injury Center (CIC)

Comprehensive Injury Center Request for Seed Project Applications

The Comprehensive Injury Center (CIC) is announcing a request for proposals for intramural funding for an injury-related seed project with a budget of no more than $25,000. The CIC will fund 3 projects at this award amount. The project must be focused on an injury related topic across the T0-T5 continuum of research and must be focused on injury disparities. Injury disparities is defined as a topic that is over-represented in an underserved population, injury that leads to health disparities, or, an injury related topic in an at risk population for health disparities. This seed project is intended to provide data or supporting information to facilitate a federal grant proposal (e.g., NIH, CDC, AHRQ) planned to be submitted within six months of the end of the project.
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The due date for these requests for seed project funds is October 31, 2024 at 11:59 pm and should be sent to Heidi Gremmer at hgremmer@mcw.edu.

If salaries will be supported with the funding, they may not exceed the NIH salary cap and no indirect costs will be paid. To be considered for this funding opportunity, the proposal must include the following:

  • Specific Aims Page, which will outline the aims for the planned project and will indicate a link to next steps for federal grant submission (not to exceed 1 page in length)
  • Research plan for seed project, including sections on significance, innovation, and approach (not to exceed 3 pages in length)
  • Statement of plan for federal grant submission, including the funding agency that will receive the planned submission (not to exceed ½ page in length)
  • Statement on how the research project will impact the community and be disseminated to the community. Please name the community organization that you plan to present or disseminate your findings (1 page)
  • Budget justification (1 page)
  • NIH format biosketch for project’s Principal Investigator and co-investigators
  • Statement indicating that the IRB or IACUC project proposal has been submitted with the submission # included. If IRB or IACUC approval is not necessary, please indicate and give rationale

Proposals that do not highlight the relevance of the project to injury disparities will be considered non-responsive and will not be reviewed.

Examples of injury disparities projects:

  • Investigating geospatial clustering of violence in urban communities
  • Addressing health disparities after injury in disparate populations
  • Animal model of adverse childhood experiences to investigate impact on stress biology
  • Tribal Nation addressing how frequently alcohol is associated with severe and fatal injuries

Examples of injury types (see CDC Injury Center Website for more information about Injury Center Priority Areas):

  • Violence, including firearm related violence
  • Suicide
  • Transportation related injury
  • Adverse childhood experiences
  • Falls
  • Drug overdose
  • Alcohol related injury
  • Traumatic brain injury
  • Spinal cord injury
  • Drowning

This request is extended to all MCW faculty who have an interest and a plan for conducting research relating to injury prevention and control. We also invite investigators from other academic institutions, including UW-Milwaukee and Marquette University, to apply provided they have an MCW faculty co-PI.

Applications will be reviewed by the CIC’s Division of Injury Science, which includes experts in injury prevention and control science. The committee will then select three proposals for funding by November 29, 2024 and the approved project will begin on January 1, 2025. If IRB or IACUC is not approved by January 1 for the study, funding will start when institutional approval is granted for conduct of the study.

The mission of the Comprehensive Injury Center is to create a platform to engage campus and community partners in the advancement of injury control and prevention science, particularly for marginalized populations experiencing an overburden of injury or health disparities following injury. The CIC builds on the strong history of MCW’s Injury Research Center (IRC) as well as the strengths of our faculty and staff who work in many sectors across campus to advance all four missions of the Medical College of Wisconsin, with a focus on injury control and prevention. For more information, visit our website at MCW Comprehensive Injury Center.

This opportunity to possible due to the new CDC Injury Control and Research Center funding awarded to the MCW CIC August 1, 2024 and matched funds from the Office of Research at MCW. This seed project funding opportunity will be available annually from 2025 – 2029. While the CIC will not be able to fund all of the applications that we receive, we will continue to offer seed project funding opportunities, so be sure to check our website or email the Comprehensive Injury Center at cic@mcw.edu with any questions about upcoming opportunities, or to join the CIC to receive injury prevention and control updates.