Advancing open science and developing research-ready resources that accelerate autism research are central components of the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI)’s mission. SFARI has generated a wealth of data across several autism and neurodevelopmental disorder (NDD) cohorts and has also supported, through external grants, the generation of additional large datasets. This request for applications (RFA) aims to provide researchers with the support needed to allocate time and personnel toward working with and publishing from this previously collected data.

While any publicly available dataset will be considered eligible, priority will be given to applications that use SFARI-supported resources, including data from SPARK, Simons Searchlight, the Autism Inpatient Collection, the Simons Sleep Project, the Simons Simplex Collection and other datasets funded by SFARI grants. We are open to the use of a range of different data types, such as genomic, transcriptomic, electrophysiological, brain imaging, phenotypic or epidemiological data. This RFA will not fund new data collection.

The total project budget must be $300,000 or less, inclusive of 20 percent indirect costs over a two-year period. Compute costs can be requested separately (i.e., are not included in budget cap) with justification. All applicants and key collaborators must 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.

SFARI will hold an informational Zoom meeting on July 23 at 12 p.m. ET for interested applicants. The deadline for application submission is September 4, 2025, 12 p.m. ET.

More details on project scope and eligibility can be found in the RFA.