Incentive Grants

The WE-SPARK Incentive Grant Program was established to support health research projects that have been unsuccessful towards recent external National/ International health funding competition and will be resubmitted to subsequent application rounds. While many proposals to these funding agencies (e.g., Canadian Institutes of Health Research) are worthy of funding, not all are successful because of steep competition and/or insufficient funds. The WE-SPARK Incentive Program is designed to support researchers and enhance their health research programs in an effort to increase the prospect of their success for future external funding.

Research Areas

Each of the additional participating partners have tailored this funding opportunity to meet the needs of their respective communities.

Funds Available

WE-SPARK and partner(s) financial contributions for this program are subject to availability of funds. The amount available for this funding opportunity may increase if additional funding partner(s) participate. Each grant is for one (1) year. The maximum amount per grant will vary by funding partner(s) but will not exceed $20,000.

Funding Opportunities in Specific Research Areas:

• Funding is expanded by the WE-SPARK Institute’s Partner Priorities (PPs) that award grants in specific health-related research areas relevant to the Partner’s mandate and needs. PPs offer further sources of funding for highly ranked and competitive applications that are more tailored towards specific health needs or were not funded through the WE-SPARK Incentive Grant budget.
• In order for an application to be considered for funding through a PP, applicants can specify the relevant PP in the application form.
• See Current Partner Priorities

Funding:

• Grant dollars are to be used to generate preliminary data, develop research tools, build collaborative research teams, pay research salaries, or other activities that will strengthen the proposal.
• As for all research funding, any required research ethics certifications (for human participants, animals, biohazards, etc.) must be in place before funds are released to the researcher.
• There is no obligation for the Committee to dispense funds if applications do not meet requirements of the awards.

Eligibility:

• Applicants must be a Core member of WE-SPARK. Eligibility for Partner Priority funding opportunities will depend on the Partner and their mandates.
• Must be the Principal Applicant on an unsuccessful externally peer-reviewed national or international funding application focused on health research and submitted within the last two funding rounds.
• Must be willing to commit to resubmitting within 2 years of the first unsuccessful application submission.

Subsequent Funding:

If you have received an Incentive Grant in the past:

• and re-submitted an application within two years, you will need to justify how your current unsuccessful research proposal significantly differs from the one that you previously received an Incentive Grant for to support re-submission (differentiation statement).
• and failed to re-submit an application within two years, you will be deemed ineligible for further funding from a WE-SPARK Incentive Grant, unless there is a justification.

Application Package:

1. Unsuccessful externally peer-reviewed application
2. Reviewer comments
3. Completed Incentive Grant application form with short plan summary, budget details and justification
4. Differentiation statement if you have been a previous Incentive Grant Awardee

Please send the complete application package (in one PDF format) to Ingrid Qemo (Ingrid.Qemo@uwindsor.ca), Research Coordinator-Health, Office of Research and Innovation, University of Windsor or Peter Wawrow (pwawrow@stclaircollege.ca), Director of Applied Research and Development, St. Clair College.

Application Deadlines

This will be a rolling application submission.

Current Partner Priorities

1. WE-SPARK has partnered with the Cancer Research Collaboration Fund and the Windsor Cancer Research Group (WCRG) to provide a cancer-specific Incentive Grant to a strong cancer research program that was competitive but not successful in recent rounds of externally peer-reviewed national and/or international funding calls. This grant is only eligible to local Principal Investigators who hold an academic/research appointment or adjunct status at the University of Windsor.

Contact Information

Grant Guidelines