Pilot Programs & Awards

The Yale Center for Clinical Investigation (YCCI) is pleased to announce this request for applications for 2024 Pilot Program project grants. The YCCI Pilot Program offers funding opportunities towards new and innovative, scientifically meritorious projects to collect critical preliminary data for submission of extramural grant / funding opportunities and to promote the publication of research findings.

YCCI invites investigators with Yale faculty appointments to submit applications demonstrating new initiatives research focusing on important aspects of human disease. Innovative proposals across the translational research spectrum are welcome. Awards of up to $50,000 (direct costs) for up to 18 months may be requested. Projects will be reviewed after 6 months, and remaining funds will be contingent upon satisfactory progress at the time of this review. Certain research areas are of special interest, pertaining to the goals and priorities of YCCI, and applications in these areas are encouraged. These Special Emphasis Areas are:

Projects that generate scientific and operational innovations that overcome longstanding challenges along the translational research pipeline constitute Translational Science. These include scientific, operational, financial, and administrative innovations that transform the way that research is done, making it faster, more efficient, and more impactful. Projects that involve application to humans of discoveries generated from basic research studies in the laboratory or with preclinical models are encouraged. Proposals may involve diagnostics and therapeutics to medical procedures and behavioral changes. Research aimed at enhancing the adoption of best practices in the community as well as studies of cost-effectiveness of prevention and treatment are also within the scope of this emphasis area.

Proposals that address gaps between health sciences research, clinical practice, and population health are sought. The studies may propose building a knowledge base about how health information, interventions, and how new clinical practices and policies are communicated and implemented in public health and health care delivery settings. Among the areas of interest are studies that seek to improve health care delivery by “de-implementing” or lessening the use of strategies and interventions that are not evidence-based, have been prematurely widely adopted, yield sub-optimal benefits for patients, or are harmful or wasteful.

Proposals regarding Community and Health equity research may interrogate the dynamic, cumulative, and interrelated structures of power, environmental conditions, and economic systems that produce inequities in health between different populations. This field of special emphasis also identifies, promotes, and leverages community-informed protective factors that are traditionally undervalued and understudied. Projects that are responsive in this area may have goals of improving clinical trials participation, expanding outreach and access to diagnosis and treatment resources and tools and improving response speed to public health challenges in the affected community. These research goals may be achieved through engagement or partnership with community organizations, patients, public health agencies, advocates, policymakers, or other groups throughout the research process.

Due date for full applications: May 6, 2024 @ 5PM

Earliest anticipated project start date: July 15, 2024

• Application Information
• Application Form
• Application Link