Information - Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation Continuum Grant Program; August 31, 2015

Grayson-Jockey Club Research Foundation Continuum Grant Program

Please share this with your researchers/colleagues

What is a “Continuum Grant”?  It is a grant that could be worth up to $450,000 for four years of focused research on a priority problem for the horse and the industry.

The goal is two pronged.  1) We want to give away a “Continuum Grant” if we get a grant that is worthy and meets the targets, and 2) we want to raise the bar on all research grants at the same time by funding more focused and longer horizon research.  Continuum grants should move research faster, and in a more focused fashion to make progress on a problem quicker.

We don’t want to separate the grants from the general pool because we want these premium grants to qualify for the routine funding if they don’t get selected for the “continuum option”.  They should be really good grants and they should remain part of our core research mission. 

Researchers have the option to submit for the continuum option, when they submit a grant.  This means they have to go through extra work in submitting, but if they are selected for the “Continuum Option” and meet their targets, they get the “Continuum” of up to $250K without having to submit another full grant proposal.  In a practical sense they are just writing two closely related sequential grants at one time. If they are not selected in the “Continuum” evaluation process we don’t want to disrupt their grant from qualifying for routine funding with the routine rules.  Therefore the ceiling on all grants, including the Continuum Grants would be $200K (or so) for the first two years, as per usual. 

The “continuum option” would be targeted to promote grants that are a part of a more focused, longer picture of research that should move the ball faster and more completely forward in the field being investigated.  The selection of the Continuum Grant by the Research Advisory Committee will be competitive with the same evaluation criteria that are used for routine grant submissions.  The complete grant proposal for the Continuum Option should be submitted in two segments.  In effect two proposals.  The first will be judged with all the other routine submissions and scored identically to the routine grant submissions for the granting period.  The Continuum portion will be judged separately and scored similarly.  The scores will then be combined for the Continuum Award and the Research Advisory Committee will rank the grants.  Initially we will be awarding only one Continuum grant per cycle, but we hope new fund raising initiatives will be able to generate more than one per cycle in the near future.  Investigators will be required to meet a stringent set of criteria near the end of the first 2-year grant to get the $250K released.  This makes it imperative that the first half of the grant has clearly stated objectives, of the quality that make the grant competitive.  Qualification for the Continuum will require meeting the benchmarks at the end of the first two years.  This means that the grant would be approved in February, the money released in April, and the benchmarks would be due 26 months later in July. 

The benchmark is a research paper that addresses the enumerated goals of the grant application for the first two years of the research.  The paper has to be submitted to an appropriate refereed journal and the author would have to provide proof of submission (not acceptance) along with and the paper and a narrative stating the conclusions of the first two years of research and their importance and relation to each of the stated goals of the research enumerated in the initial application.

These goals will be set out in the application, and the investigator signs off on them when the money is accepted.  They will not be negotiable; we will grant no extension.  We are trying to make these grants a priority of research, as such the recipient has to have the same attitude and once the money is granted (initially) they have to make it a priority to hit the agreed upon benchmarks to get the “continuum portion”. 

If they don’t meet the benchmarks it doesn’t mean they have done something wrong, they just have to re-submit a full grant application October 1, and wait until February to see if they get funded in the regular grant cycle.  The ceiling then would drop back to the usual $200K, not the $250 of the “Continuum”. 

If they hit all the benchmarks of the stated goals of the research by July (26 months after the April release of the money) as checked by the RAC and approved by the Board of Directors at the August board meeting, the $250K would be released to complete the “Continuum” portion of the grant without the need for a second grant application.  At the completion of the entire grant, the continuum grant would be subject to the normal publication requirements for the second half of the grant.  This would save almost a year compared to submitting two sequential grants.  If a grant misses the benchmarks, they could still submit a second grant in October and be judged again in the routine grant cycle, subject to the routine grant evaluation guidelines.

This should raise all the boats as well as create a more rapidly moving longer horizon research track parallel with our current process without harming the current process.  The RAC remains in charge of the process, eliminating the dangers of two committees in parallel diverging in mission.

Please be aware the alterations will be made by Grayson on the on-line application.

The website for the foundation: http://grayson-jockeyclub.org/