The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is pleased to announce the SFARI Explorer Awards program: an initiative designed to provide timely support to innovative, high-risk experiments relevant to our mission.

The Explorer Awards program is intended to support exploratory work that will strengthen hypotheses and lead to competitive applications for larger-scale funding by SFARI or other organizations. We will consider proposals in several areas, including gene discovery, molecular mechanisms, circuits, anatomy, cognition and behavior, and translation.

Applications will be accepted online beginning 1 June 2011.