RPB Career Development Award Grant

The RPB Career Development Award provides $350,000 over four years to support junior faculty in ophthalmology. This funding is contingent on a 20-month progress report. The award emphasizes mentoring and encourages diverse participation in research. Up to eight awards will be granted, with one focusing on artificial intelligence and data science in vision research. Candidates must be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and hold an academic position up to Assistant Professor.

Note:
The application deadline for the Career Development Award is represented by the second full proposal deadline above, and nomination forms are due on the first full proposal deadline.  Applications received without a prior nomination form will not be acceptedIf the deadline falls on a weekend or holiday, please consider the deadline to be the following business day.
DESCRIPTION
Career Development Award: $350,000 payable over four (4) years, $75,000 a year for the first and second payments, with the third and fourth payments ($100,000 each) contingent upon approval of a 20-month substantive progress report.
The RPB Career Development Award (CDA) helps RPB-supported ophthalmology Chairs support junior faculty who have demonstrated their potential for independent research. A detailed mentoring plan for the candidate is an important part of this award. This plan must be clearly defined in the Chair’s statement. Up to eight (8) Career Development Awards will be given. RPB is partnering to co-fund one (1) award that focuses on artificial intelligence and/or data science.
The RPB / Tom Wertheimer Career Development Award in Data Science focuses on vision research using artificial intelligence and data science to gain new knowledge about sight-threatening conditions. Where applicable, we strongly encourage the inclusion of diverse populations in proposed studies.The RPB Career Development Award will not have a specific focus and is open to any topic within vision research.
Awardees will be required to submit a substantive progress report after 20 months. This report will be competitively reviewed, and subsequent third and fourth payments are contingent upon approval of this report.

Eligibility

RPB-supported ophthalmology Chairs may nominate up to two candidates per department – one candidate for each award listed above -- whose primary appointment is in ophthalmology and whose primary lab space is under ophthalmology’s jurisdiction. Interim or acting Chairs cannot nominate a candidate for this award.Candidates must hold a primary academic position up to and including Assistant Professor. Candidates must be either U.S. citizens or permanent residents (green card holders) by the application deadline. Previous recipients of this grant are ineligible.The candidate’s first full-time ophthalmology faculty appointment must have been within three (3) years of the application deadline. Candidates must be full-time faculty in their nominating ophthalmology department by the application deadline.At the application deadline, the candidate cannot currently have an R01 or an award through the DP1 mechanism or have been awarded an R01 or an award through a DP mechanism in the past as a Principal Investigator. Candidates with pending R01s or awards through a DP mechanism are eligible.MDs and MD/PhDs must devote at least 50% of their time to research activities, with 60% desirable, as opposed to teaching or medical practice.Any previous RPB individual grants to the candidate must be fully spent and recognized as terminated by RPB before an individual researcher may apply for another RPB grant. This only applies to the candidate and not to the mentors and/or collaborators.

Ineligibility

Previous recipients of this grant are ineligible.