Innovator Awards - Institutions Grant

The Innovator Awards, presented by the Kenneth Rainin Foundation, support groundbreaking research aimed at enhancing understanding of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). With funding of up to $300,000 for collaborative projects, the program encourages innovative ideas and cross-institutional partnerships. Researchers are evaluated on innovation, scientific merit, and their ability to execute projects. Recipients showing significant progress may qualify for additional funding. The program aims to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing in the biomedical research community.

The Innovator Awards Program enables researchers worldwide to test ideas and collaborate to advance the understanding of IBD.
The Kenneth Rainin Foundation believes that early support for innovative ideas can lead to improvements in preventing, predicting, diagnosing and treating Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD). Our Health grantmaking enables researchers worldwide to test ideas, gather and share data, and collaborate to advance the understanding of IBD. In 2022, we consolidated our Innovator Awards and Synergy Awards into one grant program—the Innovator Awards.
Innovator Awards support individual research projects with grants of up to $150,000 and collaborative projects involving multiple investigators with grants of up to $300,000. Grantees who demonstrate significant progress are eligible for up to two years of additional support.
Please see FAQs for additional guidelines.
Funding Criteria
Applications will be evaluated based on:

• InnovationScientific meritInvestigator capability to execute the project
• Use Of Human And Animal Subjects
• Grant recipients using human or animal subjects must provide documentation of approval from the appropriate review committee within 90 days of award start date
• Budget Amount

Innovator Awards support up to $300,000 USD for collaborative projects involving multiple researchers.The budget must reflect the total amount requested, which may include up to 10% for indirect costs.The budget caps of $300,000 USD, respectively, include all indirect costs.

Eligibility

Grantees who demonstrate significant progress are eligible for up to two years of additional support.Institutions:All nonprofit institutions must be classified as “not a private foundation” under Section 509(a)(3).If a proposal from a nonprofit institution outside of the United States is ultimately recommended for funding, the institution will be required to undergo an Equivalency Determination process. The Rainin Foundation contracts with NGOsource to manage this process. Institutions outside of the United States do not need to provide any documentation during the two-stage application process.For-profit institutions must demonstrate that their proposed project furthers the Foundation’s charitable mission of advancing biomedical research.The Foundation may upon occasion make grants to government and public agencies, as well as to independent projects that have a qualified tax-exempt fiscal sponsor.Institutions can submit more than one proposal at a time for the same or different Principal Investigator.

Ineligibility

The Foundation Does Not Fund:Direct assistance to individuals or individual sponsorships
Fraternal organizations
Organizations that discriminate based on religion, race, sexual orientation or gender.Innovator Award funding cannot be used to cover travel to attend other scientific meetings.