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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
Proposals
- 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.
Proposal Priorities
- Awardees must plan to have at least preliminary data to present
by the 2009 COMSEP/APPD meeting in Baltimore, April 28th
– 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.
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