2023 Winter Pilot Award – Request for Applications

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. Applications may be submitted by domestic and foreign nonprofit organizations; public and private institutions, such as colleges, universities, hospitals, laboratories, units of state and local government; and eligible agencies of the federal government. There are no citizenship or country requirements. See the Personnel FAQ section for more information on the responsibilities of a SFARI principal investigator.

No, postdoctoral associates may not apply as PIs even if your institution is willing to submit an application on your behalf.

Senior postdoctoral research associates who are interested in pursuing an independent career in autism research are encouraged to apply for SFARI’s Bridge to Independence Award RFA.

Yes, foreign institutions may apply. Please see Simons Foundation policies regarding international grants.

Principal Investigator
The individual(s) judged by the applicant institution to have the appropriate level of authority and responsibility to direct the project or program supported by the grant. All principal investigators (PIs) must hold a Ph.D., M.D. or equivalent degree and have a faculty position or equivalent at a college, university, medical school or other research facility. The PI is responsible and accountable to the applicant institution and the Simons Foundation for the proper conduct of the project or activity, including the submission of all required reports. The PI will act as the main point of contact for the Simons Foundation and should be noted as personnel in the budget even if not requesting salary. There is no minimum percent effort required for PI, but it is expected that the PI will join the collaborative community of Simons Foundation Investigators, and that the PI will partake in some conferences, workshops and symposia that the Simons Foundation organizes.

Co-Investigator
An individual involved with the PI in the scientific development or execution of a project. The co-investigator must hold a Ph.D., M.D. or equivalent, and be employed by or be affiliated with the applicant/grantee institution or another organization participating in the project under a consortium agreement. A co-investigator is considered key personnel and should be noted as personnel in the budget even if not requesting salary. The Simons Foundation does not require a minimum effort from the co-investigator. The designation of a co-investigator, if applicable, does not affect the PI’s roles and responsibilities, nor is it a role implying multiple PIs.

We seek applications from independent investigators who can devote a substantial portion of time to this effort. There is no minimum percent effort required for any personnel, but we expect personnel, in particular PIs and co-investigators, to have efforts that reflect their roles in the project.

When relevant, the applicant organization may designate multiple individuals as PIs who share the authority and responsibility for leading and directing the project, intellectually and logistically. Each PI is responsible and accountable to the applicant organization or, as appropriate, to a collaborating organization, for the proper conduct of the project or program, including the submission of all required reports. The presence of more than one identified PI on an application or award diminishes neither the responsibility nor the accountability of any individual PI.

The first PI listed, under whose name the application is submitted, will serve as the contact PI for administrative purposes. The contact PI must be affiliated with the institution submitting the application. The contact PI will be responsible for communication between SFARI and the rest of the leadership team.

The role type “Co-PI” will not be used by SFARI.

Please review the instructional video, “Generate collaboration and multi-site applications,” on our website.

You can save personnel details in the Project Personnel section on the Contacts and Personnel tab of the application.

Yes, co-investigators and additional personnel can be listed on multiple applications.

We do not require letters of support or letters of collaboration from co-investigators. If a letter is prepared, it can be uploaded in the Other section.

Applications must be submitted via the Simons Award Manager (SAM). Please click on the Funding Opportunities icon and navigate to the Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative — Pilot Award call. Click the Create Application button to begin. Applications should be started and submitted under the applicant’s own account in SAM.

No, the Simons Foundation accepts only applications submitted online through SAM.

No, only the signing official may sign and submit the application.

The Submit button is located at the bottom right of the screen. You will be unable to submit if you have not provided all the required information. If the submission deadline has NOT passed, use the Check Application Progress button to check for missing requirements. If the problem persists, please contact sfarigrants@simonsfoundation.org.

If the deadline has passed, the submission period has closed, and you will not be able to submit.

The Check Application Progress button reviews your application for missing sections. The submission instructions list the required sections and attachments. You must complete the missing sections listed. If you are still receiving error messages after completing and saving the indicated sections, please contact samsupport@simonsfoundation.org.

No, please be advised that application deadlines on the application are in Eastern Time. We recommend registering early and submitting applications with ample time for corrections prior to the deadline hour. Site traffic can slow page-load times. The Submit button will not work after the deadline time has passed.

A confirmation email is sent upon submission of the application. Make sure that spam filters allow emails from no-reply@simonsfoundation.org. Additionally, the application will be in the Submitted tab of the Applications in Progress table after submission.

Before you can make changes to your submitted application, you must first contact the Simons Foundation. Please email sfarigrants@simonsfoundation.org. Applications can only be changed prior to the deadline.

You should receive notification within 24 hours of the deadline. Please check your spam filter settings if you have not received notification by then.

Principal Investigators may submit multiple applications for funding, however SFARI is exceedingly unlikely to award more than one grant to a given PI in a single year.

Unsuccessful applications submitted to previous SFARI RFAs may be resubmitted in subsequent RFAs. However, we will not accept applications that have previously been considered three (3) or more times (regardless of which RFA they were previously submitted to). For all resubmissions, we ask PIs to submit a statement of changes describing substantive changes to the application since the previous submission. If the previous application was externally reviewed, this document should include point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ critiques. This document will be used primarily by SFARI’s internal scientific staff, although in some cases portions of it may be shared with external reviewers at SFARI’s discretion. If the revised application does not include substantive changes, it is unlikely that the outcome will change. This is especially true for applications that were not externally reviewed, as this decision is often based on the relevance of the project to SFARI’s mission.

Given the focus of the Pilot RFA on bold, imaginative new ideas, it is unlikely that a renewal of a currently funded project (either from SFARI or elsewhere) will be a good fit for this RFA. We encourage investigators to seek continuation support from outside funding sources. In exceptional cases where progress has been stellar, SFARI may provide continuation funding for projects of particularly high impact, at the discretion of the science team. Decisions on new proposals from current SFARI Investigators will include the evaluation of progress on previous or ongoing SFARI grants.

The Specific Aims Page should be a summary of the proposed project focused on the research aims of the project, including a concise rationale for the hypothesis, description of preliminary data and experimental approach, and impact on autism research.

The Specific Aims Page should not exceed one (1) page of single-spaced, 11-point text and 0.5-inch margins.

Pilot Award Proposal Narratives should not exceed three (3) pages single-spaced, 11-point text and 0.5-inch margins. Figures, figure legends and references should follow the narrative text and will not count towards the page limit.

The Proposal Narrative should be considered an expanded version of the Specific Aims Page and used to provide more detail on the following:

• Relevant scientific background and relevance to autism
• Preliminary results when applicable
• Specific aims
• Experimental design
• Pitfalls and alternative strategies
• Future directions and implications for autism diagnosis, understanding or treatment
• Timeline and milestones

SFARI considers the following information crucial for the evaluation of a project and encourages including the following details (where relevant):

• Induced pluripotent stem cell lines and controls to be used and their availability
• Animal model strains/lines and their availability
• Patient cohorts used (including source of participants, sample size and availability of genetic data)
• Datasets or biospecimen collections to be used (including SFARI resources) and their availability
• A brief statement of statistical power
• Investigators should refer to the Methodological and Statistical Considerations Sheet for further information on necessary experimental detail to include in the proposal narrative.

References, figures and figure legends are not included in the page limits for the Proposal Narrative, although we have a limit of ten (10) figures, each fitting on a single page. Please attach them at the end of the narrative in the same PDF file. The Simons Foundation’s preference is for figures to follow the narrative rather than be embedded in the text. References should be in Journal of Neuroscience format, including full author list, title and a link to PubMed.

For all resubmissions, we ask PIs to submit a statement of changes describing substantive changes to the application since the previous submission. If the previous application was externally reviewed, this document should include point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ critiques. This document will be used primarily by SFARI’s internal scientific staff, although in some cases portions of it may be shared with external reviewers at SFARI’s discretion.

In-press papers can be included, as well as any papers that you consider essential for the work of the review committee. Include no more than three (3) papers. Any other material should be included, if possible, in the narrative. If you have video attachments for your proposal, please upload them in the Other section (all file types are accepted).

Applications with a subcontract (including PIs who will be paid directly by the contact PI’s institution) should review the instructional video, “Add a subcontract budget to an application,” on our website.

Yes. The total limit for a Pilot Award is $300,000, which includes indirect costs, at 20 percent for up to two (2) years. Allowable Indirect costs to the primary institution for subcontracts are not included in the $300,000 total budget threshold (see grant policies). Please note that indirect costs cannot be taken on equipment with a unit cost of more than $10,000 or on tuition or SSC and Simons Searchlight biospecimens.

You can access and request information about the SSC, Simons Searchlight, SPARK, AIC and Autism BrainNet on SFARI Base. If you do not have SFARI Base account, you must create one. If you have problems with the log in or have questions regarding the collections, please email collections@sfari.org.

Please see the SPARK webpage for more information about the SPARK cohort and available data. You can access and request information about the data collected from SPARK via SFARI Base. If you do not have a SFARI Base account, you must create one. If you have problems with the login or have questions regarding the collections, please email collections@sfari.org.

No, but phenotypic and genetic data are currently available to approved researchers via SFARI Base.

Researchers may submit an application on SFARI Base. The SPARK Participant Access Committee considers applications on a quarterly basis, but applications may be submitted at any time. Please refer to the SPARK Recruitment Process Document for more details and email collections@sfari.org with any questions.

No, SSC, Simons Searchlight and AIC biospecimen costs are not included in the budget limit. Prices can be found on the price list on our website.

Researchers may submit an application through SFARI Base. Information on Autism BrainNet tissue and data are available in the Autism BrainNet tissue catalogue.