Mission
The Simons Collaboration on Plasticity and the Aging Brain (SCPAB) aims to discover mechanisms of resilience and maintenance in the aging brain and to establish a baseline for age-related changes in plasticity across many model systems in order to identify potential interventions to minimize cognitive decline and extend healthy lifespan.
More detailed information about SCPAB’s leadership and scientific mission is available on our website.
Objective of the 2020 Extensions
This RFA is by invitation only. We are soliciting progress reports and proposals for two years of further funding to expand and develop previously funded SCPAB Awards. These proposals should build on ideas generated in the first three years of SCPAB award funding.
We expect that the composition of investigators on any extension application will remain largely the same. If there are compelling reasons to add or change principal investigators (PIs), please make this justification clear in the application.
What to Submit:
Spokesperson PI (SPI)
- Two-page progress report: a summary of the collaborative group’s progress towards the originally stated aims of the 2020 collaborative proposal.
- Two-page extension proposal: scientific narrative of the plan for the collaborative group for a two-year project building on the discoveries generated during the first three years of SCPAB funding.
- List of all the PIs who will work on this extension project, along with an NIH biographical sketch of any new PIs.
- Individual contribution: a paragraph outlining your individual contribution to the two-year proposed extension project. If you are part of more than one extension project, please include a paragraph for each of the projects to which you belong.
- Budget: your individual lab’s budget for the two-year extension plan according to the budget guidelines below. If you are part of more than one project, please submit the total combined budget that your lab will use for the projects.
- If you are requesting the addition of a new PI to your collaborative group, the SPI must submit the paragraph outlining that new PI’s individual contribution and the new PI’s individual lab’s budget for the two-year extension plan.
Individual Investigators
- Individual contribution: Each PI, in their own individual pC accounts, must submit a paragraph for each of the two-year proposed extension projects they are part of, outlining their individual lab’s contribution to that two-year extension plan.
- Budget: Each PI must submit a two-year budget according to the budget guidelines outlined below using the provided excel spreadsheet. If you are part of more than one project, please submit the total combined budget that your lab will use for the projects.
How to Submit:
- Once you have completed your budget in the provided excel sheet, please save it along with your project narrative in a single PDF.
- In the deliverables section in your pC account, you will see “Extension Proposals (Two Years)”
- For Individual PIs: Please upload the single pdf of your individual contribution to the two-year extension plan and your budget
- For SPIs: Please upload the single PDF containing the requirements listed above (scientific progress report, two-year project proposal, individual contribution, the list of investigators along with NIH biosketch for any new PIs), and your individual budget for the two-year extension. If you are requesting the addition of a new PI to your collaborative group, the SPI must submit the paragraph outlining that new PI’s individual contribution and the new PI’s individual lab’s budget for the two-year extension plan.
For questions about the scientific scope of the award or investigator composition, please contact Kim Scobie ([email protected]).
Funding
Funding will be distributed per investigator as follows:
- $250,000 including indirect costs per year for an investigator working on one project
- $375,000 including indirect costs for an investigator working on more than one project
- The award amount is capped at $375,000 including indirect costs, regardless of additional projects in which the investigators are participating.
There are no restrictions on the number of projects an investigator may join. If at least one of the projects an investigator joins is funded, they will receive funding at the aforementioned level. Deviations from this budget plan will be considered on a case-by-case basis after proposal review.
Appropriate expenses include salary support for the investigator and postdoctoral and graduate research assistants, travel, equipment, supplies and other research expenses. Allowable indirect costs to the primary institution for subcontracts are not included in the $250,000 budget threshold (see grant policies). A detailed budget justification will be solicited with the full proposal.
Eligibility
The submitting PI must be a current 2020 SCPAB award recipient and hold a Ph.D., M.D. or equivalent degree and have a faculty position or the equivalent at a college, university, medical school or other research facility.
Applications may be submitted by domestic and foreign nonprofit organizations; public and private institutions, such as colleges, universities, hospitals, laboratories and units of state and local government; and eligible agencies of the federal government. There are no citizenship or country requirements.