2026 Quality of Life Research Grants

2026 Quality of Life Research Grants is sponsored by National Brain Tumor Society. Through its Quality of Life Research program, NBTS supports patient-centered research aimed at improving the health, well-being, and lived experience of adults, young adults, and children diagnosed with primary brain and central nervous system (CNS) malignant tumors, as well as their care partners.

The 2026 cycle requests proposals addressing Survivorship or Behavioral and Emotional Health Care/Support.

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Current Research Initiatives NBTS offers a training program for research advocates to serve as a link between patients and scientists, government officials, and industry leaders.

Advocate From Your State® Brain Tumor Awareness Month Glioblastoma Awareness Day Childhood Cancer Awareness Month Brain Tumor Investment Fund® Corporate & Foundation Partnerships Shop to Fuel Breakthroughs Quality of life (QoL) is a major concern among people living with brain tumors as well as their family and other care partners.

Quality of life may be defined as an individual’s sense of well-being and ability to enjoy and participate in life. QoL includes physical and psychological health, level of independence, social relationships, environmental factors, and spiritual well-being. QoL is defined by the individual and can evolve over time.

National Brain Tumor Society believes that the quest for cures must include the same drive for quality of life and has worked with the community to develop a Quality of Life Research Agenda to guide future research efforts in this area, including the launch of the first NBTS Quality of Life Research Grant.

NBTS’s QoL Research Agenda NBTS aims to advance QoL research for people facing brain tumors, convene and engage key stakeholders around priority QoL issues, and improve patient-centered and comparative effectiveness research and clinical practice as it pertains to brain tumor QoL.

In order to achieve these goals, NBTS has partnered with patients, caregivers, researchers, and clinicians to develop the first-ever Quality of Life Research Agenda . To develop the agenda, NBTS first conducted a landscape analysis of existing data and Quality of Life research in neuro-oncology in 2022.

NBTS then began a robust stakeholder input process – including creating a stakeholder advisory group (below) and hosting multiple roundtable meetings – to determine how to fill in gaps identified in the landscape analysis and develop a new QoL Research Agenda. This work builds upon earlier efforts by NBTS and key opinion leaders.

This effort was funded through a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute® (PCORI®) Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award (EACB-23261).

NBTS’s QoL Research Grants In addition to guiding the field to fill the critical gaps in quality of life research for the brain tumor community, the agenda has also inspired the launch of the first NBTS Quality of Life Research Grant, which establishes a scalable grant-making structure to issue awards to qualified researchers. NBTS announced the first two QoL Research Grants in early 2025, with support in part from Stachestrong .

Ashlee R. Loughan, PhD, and Sarah Ellen Braun, PhD, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) Drs. Loughan and Braun will study the effects of a newly-developed intervention, FearLess in Neuro-Oncology, aimed at reducing fear of recurrence or progression in patients with brain tumors and their caregivers.

Together, Drs. Loughan and Braun have developed an intervention, called FearLess in Neuro-Oncology, an extensive manual – developed with the input of clinician, patient, and caregiver stakeholders – to address the distress many experience related to the fear of their brain tumor coming back or growing.

Dr. Braun has found that this fear is particularly high in both patients with primary malignant brain tumors and their caregivers, across the disease trajectory, and is associated with both individual and partner distress, among other negative outcomes. With their NBTS Quality of Life Research grant, Drs. Loughan and Braun will conduct a trial enrolling 16 sets of adult brain tumor patients with their primary, informal caregivers.

These 16 sets will be randomly split into two groups. The first group will participate in FearLess immediately. The other half will serve as the control group during a waiting period and will receive FearLess after the first group has finished.

The researchers will assess the feasibility of recruiting, enrolling, and collecting the data to determine if the FearLess intervention can reduce fear and improve coping. *If you’re interested in participating in the FearLess in Neuro-Oncology trial, Drs. Loughan and Braun are seeking patients and/or caregivers to participate either individually, or as a dyad.

Compensation is available. If you are interested in participating, call or email to see if you are eligible: (804) 628-6799 or livenow@vcu. edu .

Laurie Minns, PhD, University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) With her NBTS Quality of Life Research grant, Dr. Minns will work with Drs. Barbara J. Lutz and Hayley Estrem of the UNCW School of Nursing, along with advisory board members from other research institutions and GBM support groups.

Dr. Lutz collaborated with Dr. Michelle Camicia to develop the original PATH instrument, which the team will now seek to adapt specifically for the brain tumor community. PATH was originally created as a readiness assessment for stroke caregivers that screens for an individual’s capacity, commitment, and resources to take on the challenges of caregiving for difficult diseases in the home.

Dr. Minns and her team will now work with caregivers of patients with high-grade brain tumors to develop new questions and assessments specific to caring for this population.

History of Quality of Life Research at National Brain Tumor Society NBTS hosts meeting of patients, care partners, researchers, and advocates to take stock of QoL needs of those living with a brain tumor NBTS forms Jumpstarting Brain Tumor Drug Development Coalition (JBTDDC) with other brain tumor advocacy organizations, and includes a focus on QoL NBTS, through the JBTDDC, convenes first-ever workshop with U.S. FDA on the subject of including measures of QoL-related outcomes (called Clinical Outcome Assessments) in brain tumor clinical trials Two papers resulting from the JBTDDC meeting on Clinical Outcome Assessments are published, one by leaders from NBTS and the research and clinical community in the journal Neuro-Oncology and the other by leaders from the FDA in the journal Neuro-Oncology Practice Researchers Liz Salmi (a patient with a brain tumor), and Bethany Kwan, PhD, MSPH (a care partner) establish the Brain Cancer Quality of Life Collaborative (BCQoLC) NBTS launches a new effort to develop capacity for QoL research that will lead to new grant funding, data collection, and collaborations and – together with Liz Salmi and Bethany Kwan – held a stakeholder advisory group with over 30 people, including a mix of patients, care partners, clinicians, and researchers with diverse backgrounds and diagnoses to meet regularly to discuss QoL research The advisory group plus additional stakeholders hold two in-person roundtable meetings to help in the development of a research agenda focused on QoL Members of the advisory group publish a paper in the journal Neuro-Oncology Practice on research priorities and essential elements of palliative care services for people facing malignant brain tumors NBTS launches first Request for Proposals for brain tumor QoL research grants NBTS awards first-ever QoL research grants to researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University and UNC Wilmington for two years and $200,000 each Quality of Life – NCI Thesaurus The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL) Report of the Jumpstarting Brain Tumor Drug Development Coalition and FDA clinical trials clinical outcome assessment endpoints workshopClinical outcome assessments in neuro-oncology: a regulatory perspective * Speak to your clinician about any questions you have, as there are many resources available to help you as you navigate living with a brain tumor.

Additional Quality of Life Resources Quality of Life & Supportive Care Resources How Palliative Care Can Support the Brain Tumor Community Managing Quality of Life Care in Pediatric Brain Tumors National Brain Tumor Society (NBTS) is pleased to announce a request for proposals (RFP) for quality of life (QoL) projects in 2025-2026 .

This award will support innovative patient-centered research designed to address critical problems or barriers to progress in the field of brain tumor QoL. Stay Informed & Connected Last Chance to Secure Your Spot in D. C.

Join NBTS and hundreds of advocates from across the country at Head to the Hill in Washington, D. C. , from May 3-5.

Register by April 6 to ensure your voice AND your state are represented as we urge Congress to fund brain tumor research and support key legislation.