The Yale Diabetes Research Center 2027 Pilot and Feasibility Project Grants

The Yale Diabetes Research Center is pleased to announce the availability of pilot and feasibility project grants commencing April 1, 2027, for one to two years to fund collaborative research projects ranging from $30,000 to $37,000.

These pilots provide seed money for investigators to explore the feasibility of diabetes/metabolism-related studies and to obtain sufficient data to further pursue such lines of investigation via other funding mechanisms.

The DRC Pilot and Feasibility program has been specifically designed to foster the work of young investigators beginning a career in diabetes research to encourage investigators to study problems in diabetes and metabolic diseases, and new collaborative associations that involve the participation of investigators from more than one department at Yale.

Those eligible to apply fall into three categories:

1. New investigators without current or past non-mentored NIH research project support as a principal investigator.

2. Established investigators with no previous work in diabetes related areas who wish to apply their expertise to a problem in this area.

3. Established investigators in diabetes research who propose testing innovative ideas that represent a clear departure from ongoing research interests. All eligible investigators must have faculty appointments.

Priority will be given to new collaborative investigations. The primary review criteria will be scientific excellence, innovation, diabetes relevance, and the likelihood of the project evolving into federally funded diabetes research. Awardees from the past 5 years are precluded from applying unless the proposal is in a new area of study. Please contact the director to discuss. An exception is made for first-year awardees from the previous funding cycle, who are encouraged to submit a second-year funding application.

The deadline to submit an application is December 1, 2026. Kevan Herold, MD, Director of the DRC Pilot and Feasibility Program, will announce the recipients.

Please submit applications to Johanna Json-Toft at johanna.json-toft@yale.edu by the above date. To download the application, see "Related Links" to download the PDF.

For any questions or concerns about eligibility, scope of work, or the application, please contact Kevan Herold, MD, at kevan.herold@yale.edu or Jing Hughes, MD, at jing.hughes@yale.edu.