by Kamlesh Asotra, M.F. Bowen, Phillip Gardiner, and Teresa Johnson

At the completion of a two-year-long strategic planning effort, with support from stakeholders and the TRDRP’s scientific advisory committee, major changes in three grant award mechanisms will be instituted beginning the 2009 funding cycle. These decisions have been dictated, in large part, by diminishing tobacco surtax and hence continuously decreasing research budget of TRDRP. The good news is that there has been a significant decrease in California smokers, now hovering around 14% (1). On the other hand, if TRDRP is to continue to fund research that can make a significant impact on tobacco control and blunt the human and economic costs of tobacco-related diseases, then change is the order of the day.

Specifically, the Research Grant Awards (RTs) and the IDEA Research Awards (ITs) have been discontinued. California Research Awards and Exploratory/Development Research Awards will now replace these. The California Research Award (capped at $170,000 each year for three years in direct costs; $140,000 without human subjects) will be open to applicants who can demonstrate that their proposed research would be specifically relevant to tobacco use in California. There will be only a limited number of the California Awards funded; we expect to fund between up to, but not more than 6 of these awards.

The Exploratory/Development Research Awards —akin to the NIH R-21 Awards —will be capped at $250,000 in direct costs for two years. With these smaller awards, we hope that the number of research grants will increase and correspondingly the number of scientists receiving awards. TRDRP envisions that these awards will serve as seed money toward larger research grants from the TRDRP, federal and other nonprofit funding agencies.

These major changes, hopefully, will not only allow opportunities of continued scientific excellence in tobacco control and tobacco-related disease research, but also sustain the leadership of California research enterprise in global public health arena. These funding-mechanism changes are both a challenge and an opportunity; although many awardees will have to retool current research endeavors, these changes will ensure continued research funding to hopefully larger number of California scientists.

Potential applicants should review the new Call for Applications, which was released on September 2, 2008. Webinars are planned for the 15th and 21st of October to describe the new TRDRP award mechanisms, and we welcome all queries from interested applicants. The exact dates and times for such webinars will be communicated to the applicants via e-mail. Please contact TRDRP research administrators for any and all questions you have concerning these new award mechanisms.

Reference

1. California Tobacco control Program. Adult Smoking Prevalence. California Department of Health Services; http://www.cdph.ca.gov/programs/Tobacco/Documents/CTCPAdultSmoking06.pdf