Pilot & Feasibility
Management
As the P&F Program Co-Directors, Dr. Julie Sneddon and Dr. Shylaja Srinivasan will now lead the Executive Committee in administering the P&F Program, ensuring that the Program is fully integrated with the programmatic goals of the UCSF DRC and serves to maximize the likelihood that new investigators will remain in diabetes research. They replace Dr. Michael German, who continues on as Director of the DRC. This change in leadership increases both the size and diversity of the DRC leadership. It also allows a larger role for junior faculty in the direction of the DRC. Most importantly, the skill sets of Dr. Sneddon and Dr. Srinivasan are well-suited towards evaluation and selection of exciting new research directions for the DRC, covering both type 1 and type 2 diabetes and basic and clinical research.
Criteria and Priorities
With the goal of expanding and enriching the diabetes research community, the first priority is given to applications from New/Early Stage Investigators (within five years of their first faculty appointment), second to established non-diabetes investigators proposing to apply their skills and research developments to the diabetes field, and finally investigators with a prior history in diabetes research proposing to pursue a new and innovative direction. Priority is also given to innovation, collaborations that enhance the intellectual environment of the DRC, clinical/translational or basic proposals that may lead to improvements in the understanding, treatment or cure of diabetes, and projects that fit with the overall strategic goals of the DRC.
Funding
Funding will generally be provided for one year, and any budget greater than $50,000 needs prior approval. Enhanced P&F’s with budgets greater $50K or longer than 1 year are usually limited to clinical/translational projects of high priority with demonstrated need to the extra resources and time, and must be reassessed by the P&F Program Committee prior to receiving the second year of funding.
Review Process
After receipt from RAP, the applications are reviewed by the DRC Executive Committee, and those that best fit the criteria of the P&F Program are selected and sent to two external reviewers each. These reviewers then provide impact scores in accordance with the NIH system. Finally, the committee reviews the reports from the outside reviewers, evaluates the applications for quality (external review), and applicability to the goals of the P&F Program and the DRC, and makes recommendations to the Center for funding. Because we have an NIDDK Nutrition and Obesity Research Center at UCSF which also has a Pilot and Feasibility program, we have the director of the NORC, Christian Vaisse, sit on our Internal Advisory Board and on the P&F review committee and DRC Director Michael German sits on the NORC IAC, so that we make sure that we are working together in recruiting P&F applicants and directing them to the most appropriate program and not working at cross purposes.
Mentoring
For each grantee, a specific DRC member will be designated as an official liaison and/or mentor for ongoing dialog. That DRC member can help a grantee find colleagues to assist with specific scientific and technical issues. Mentorship will be particularly beneficial to early stage investigators and investigators new to the diabetes field. All early stage investigators at UCSF are already assigned official UCSF mentors, and they will be encouraged to participate in these discussions. Finally, all awardees will be required to present at the Diabetes Seminar Series and attend and speak at the DRC Retreat.
Oversight
The Internal and External Advisory Committee will provide oversight to the P&F Program. These committee members and DRC membership will be regularly polled for advice on potential changes to P&F Program policies and priorities.