Weston Family Foundation - Brain Health: Sleep 2023 Program

Sponsor

Weston Family Foundation

Program

Brain Health: Sleep 2023 Program

Description

The Weston Family Foundation, through the Weston Brain Institute, aims to catalyze and scale science-based approaches to significantly improve the health and well-being of Canadians. There is growing evidence that making key lifestyle changes may reduce the risk of brain diseases of aging and slow cognitive decline. 

The Institute is pleased to announce the launch of a new funding opportunity. The Brain Health: Sleep 2023 program seeks to reduce the risk and/or slow the progression of neurodegenerative diseases of aging by accelerating the development of healthy lifestyle approaches relating to sleep.

Project Eligibility:

  • Observational or interventional studies that accelerate the development of sleep-based strategies to improve brain-related outcome measures relevant to (or associated with) neurodegenerative diseases of aging. Projects should generate the evidence-base for the future implementation of better therapeutic interventions, guidelines and recommendations on sleep.
  • Preliminary data is required for this program.

Please refer to the Program Details for a full description.

Important dates:

  • Program information session:  April 25, register here or June 6, 2023 register here
  • Letter of Intent deadline: July 11, 2023 apply here (see "Deadlines" below for more information)
  • Award announcement: March 2024

Eligibility

For this program, the Foundation is only able to accept LOIs and Proposals from institutions (or individuals affiliated with and applying through or on behalf of institutions) that are Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) qualified donees located in Canada. Applicants may appear in any role on any number of applications.  

  • Eligible Principal Applicants must be a researcher working in Canada at least 50% of the time and hold a position at or above the level of Assistant Professor or equivalent at a CRA qualified donee institution located in Canada.
  • Co-applicants must be at the post-doctoral level or above and working at a CRA qualified donee institution located in Canada. 
  • Collaborators must be at the post-doctoral level or above and can be working outside of Canada.

The Foundation highly encourages collaboration within the research community and across multiple disciplines. Applicants should consider collaborations where possible to maximize the impact of their project. 

Funding Availability

Up to $1,200,000 over 3 years.

Indirect Costs

0% - not eligible as per Sponsor program guidelines.

Special Notes

Please note that research activities carried out in the context of COVID-19 need to adhere to the University of Guelph COVID-19 research principles, policies, guidelines and processes as they may be updated from time to time and communicated on the Office of Research web-page.

Deadlines

If College-level review is required, your College will communicate its earlier internal deadlines.

TypeDateNotes
External Deadline

Stage 1: Letter of Intent (LOI)

Applicant to submit LOI to Weston directly through their grants management system (see "How to Apply" section). The applicant does not need to submit a copy of the LOI and OR-5 to the Research Services Office at this time. If invited to proposal (Stage 2), applicant must provide the Research Services Office with a PDF copy of their proposal and OR-5 form (please send these to research.services@uoguelph.ca) at least one week prior to the deadline established by Weston. Please inform Kristin Gibson (kristin5@uoguelph.ca) if you are invited to the proposal stage. 

Proposals submitted to this program must be approved by the institution on whose behalf or through which the proposal is being submitted. 

How to Apply

The application process consists of two stages: Letters of Intent (LOIs) and Proposals. To apply, applicants must submit an LOI to the Foundation. Selected applicants will then be invited to submit a Proposal. Both the LOI and Proposal must be completed and submitted through the Foundation's online grants management system. Each LOI and Proposal is peer-reviewed by a scientific review committee.

The LOI stage of the application process is a significant stage of evaluation. LOIs that meet the rigorous review criteria will be invited to submit a Proposal. Historically, only a small proportion of LOIs (~15%) are invited to the Proposal stage, and approximately 30-50% of Proposals are recommended for funding. This process ensures that LOIs are easy to submit so that good ideas are not missed, while ensuring that applicants taking the time to write full Proposals have a very good chance of being funded. Budgets are only required at the Proposal phase.

See Relevant Documents to access the Letter of Intent Template.

Information For Co-applicants

If you need to meet a deadline set by the lead institution for this opportunity, please ensure that you provide the Office of Research with at least five days in advance of the lead institution’s deadline to review the application, or your proposed component of the project. Please be in touch with the Office of Research (contact information below) ahead of the deadline if it looks like it will be difficult for you to submit all the required documentation on time (i.e. budget, proposal, OR-5 Form).

For Questions, please contact

Weston Family Foundation

For program related inquiries, please send your questions to Rene Prashad, Senior Program Manager, rene.prashad@westonfoundation.ca

Office of Research

Kristin Zimmermann, Senior Grants & Contracts Specialist
Research Services Office
519-824-4120 x56257
kristin5@uoguelph.ca

Alert Classifications
Category:
Funding Opportunities and Sponsor News

Disciplines:
Health and Life Sciences
Information and Communications Technology
Social Sciences