Call for Proposals to Advance Scholarship in COMSEP

Purpose

The purpose of this initiative is to promote and support innovative educational scholarship that is designed, implemented and evaluated by COMEP members (see below for details). Selected educational grants will be supported for a total of $5,000 ($2,500 from COMSEP and $2,500 match from the Chairperson at their institutions).

Application and Submission Process

• The deadline for submissions is midnight, February 15, 2008 and all proposals will be submitted online to the COMSEP office (jbartholomew@abpeds.org)

• The cover page must include:
  
  
  • Name(s) of the applicant(s) and affiliated department(s) and medical school(s)
  • Project title
  • Contact information for the designated principal investigator (PI), including mailing address, telephone, FAX, and email address
  • Name and contact information for the mentor, including mailing address, telephone, FAX and email address
  • Name and contact information of the department chair
  • Bio-sketches of the principal investigator (PI) and the project's mentor
  • Contact information for the institutional officer to whom payment will be made (address, phone number, FAX and email address)

• Projects may include development of innovative curricula, assessment or evaluation tools, instructional materials and educational research.
• All proposals must have IRB approval (if human subjects are involved) in order for grant money to be awarded. Realizing this takes time in some institutions, investigators must demonstrate evidence that their protocols have been submitted to their IRB at the time of submission to COMSEP. If human subjects are involved, no monies will be released until there is IRB approval.
• The PI must be a COMSEP member.
• The PI must identify a mentor for the project whose role is to support the proposal and to assist/consult. The mentor may be faculty from another department or office of education and need not be a member of COMSEP. Steering committee members are not eligible to be mentors. Mentorship is an important piece of this program and will be closely reviewed by the committee.

• Awardees must plan to have at least preliminary data to present by the 2009 COMSEP/APPD meeting in Baltimore, April 28^th – May 1st, 2009. Projects that study issues common to medical students and residents will be of particular interest in anticipation of the combined COMSEP/APPD meeting. It is important to have an appropriate scope of work for the project to complete it in 12-18 months. Pilot projects to generate data for a larger grant submission in the future are strongly encouraged.
• We will not accept work that has been previously published but will accept the next iteration or continuation of such work.
• Collaborative efforts between departments or schools are encouraged but awards will be made only to the department of the principal investigator or first author. Matching funds will be required from that same department. The co- investigators may choose to negotiate additional funds from their departments.

Proposal Submission

• All proposals must include the following format:
  
  
  • An introduction (the importance of the study and the stated hypothesis)
  • Methods and materials
  • Study Design and / or Evaluation plan
  • Anticipated outcomes and results
  • Plans for dissemination and/or future grant submissions
  • Conclusions
  • Budget (itemized costs and justification).
  • Investigator time, capital equipment greater than $1000.00 and travel greater than $600.00 are not eligible for funding. Travel funds for the annual COMSEP meeting are not eligible as the expectation of members is that they will attend and their chairperson will support this attendance.
  • A timeline for implementation and expected completion is required.
    
    
• Proposals will be limited to 4 single-spaced pages not including the budget (1 page with justification), letters of support, biosketches (1 page each), and timeline (1 page).
• Categories of scholarship will include discovery (research), integration, application and teaching. (See the September 2000 issue of Academic Medicine, volume 75 for further clarification)
• The evaluation plan should be a very important part of every proposal and will be assessed based on clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods, anticipated results, and anticipated dissemination or future grant submission plans. (See the same issue of Academic Medicine)
• Proposals must include a (1-page maximum) biosketch of the PI and identified mentor. The biosketch of the mentor should clearly identify the role the mentor will play in the project. Strong mentorship is highly encouraged.
• Proposals must also include a letter of support from the chair of the PI, with a commitment to matching COMSEP's award if the project is funded.

Review Process

• Awards will be based on content related to pediatric undergraduate medical education activities. For this grant submission cycle, studies that address issues that span both undergraduate medical education and graduate medical education will be of interest.
• All submissions will be reviewed by two members of the COMSEP grant review committee. We are committed to providing an instructive critique for each proposal, including those that are not accepted. This will allow investigators to pursue their ideas by paying attention to reviewers' comments and hopefully re-writing their proposals for other funding opportunities. Proposals will be judged Approved for funding, Not Approved for funding, and Not initially approved for funding but resubmission is suggested. The committee reserves the right to ask for changes in the grant before funding is approved.
• The Committee will give highest priority to those projects that adhere to all the ground-rules, are appropriate in scope, have an appropriate budget, have the potential for generalizability, have strong mentorship outlined and have the potential for future grant submissions.
• Grants will be reviewed before the meeting and in the grants review committee on the first evening of the Annual COMSEP meeting. Direct one-on-one feedback will occur at the COMSEP meeting, if possible, with submitting PIs.
• The number of proposals funded will be dependent on the number and quality of submissions.

Progress and Final Reports

• The principal investigator of each funded proposal will submit a progress report to Jean Bartholomew 6, 12 and 18 months following the awarding of funds (for review by the steering committee). This report must include budget expenditures, barriers, progress to date and dissemination plans.
• All presentations of scholarly work must acknowledge COMSEP as a sponsor of the work.

We believe this is an exciting opportunity to advance the scholarly activities of COMSEP members, departments and the COMSEP organization as a whole. Please email Robin Deterding (Deterding.robin@tcheden.org ) with any questions.