RPB Stein Innovation Awards

RPB Stein Innovation Awards is sponsored by Research to Prevent Blindness (RPB). RPB Stein Innovation Awards provide seed money for high-risk/high-gain vision science research that is innovative, cutting-edge, and demonstrates out-of-the-box thinking, with the goal of understanding the visual system and diseases that compromise its function.

Stein Innovation Award - Research to Prevent Blindness Dry eye is a chronic medical condition that develops when the eye's tear film does not lubricate and protect the eye's outer surface. RPB Medical Student Fellow Works To Improve Glaucoma Detection RPB Stein Innovation Awards RPB Stein Innovation Awards provide funds to vision researchers with a goal of understanding the visual system and the diseases that compromise its function.

These awards are intended to provide seed money to proposed high-risk / high-gain vision science research which is innovative, cutting-edge, and demonstrates out-of-the-box thinking.

RPB offers two types of awards, a Stein Innovation Award inside ophthalmology and a Stein Innovation Award outside ophthalmology, depending on the primary appointment of faculty applying for this award: For the January deadline, department of ophthalmology faculty who are performing innovative vision research may submit an application.

For this review cycle, candidates may be from any institution of higher education in the U.S. For the July deadline, scientists outside the department of ophthalmology who are actively engaged in innovative vision research may submit an application. For this review cycle, candidates may be from any institution of higher education in the U.S. The Stein Innovation Awards are not to serve as venture philanthropy for start-up companies.

The application should also not be a natural extension of the candidate’s research progress to date; it should catalyze a new line of inquiry or otherwise show a departure from previously funded research. The proposed research in the application should provide a clear and rational research plan, compelling preliminary data, and careful consideration of pitfalls, which should be addressed in the candidate’s scientific statement.

Additionally, the application should be substantially different than an R01-type research endeavor. The proposed research should be something that federal funders are not apt to finance due to its unconventional and novel reasoning. Candidates in either cycle must be either MDs, PhDs, MD/PhDs or equivalent doctoral degree with an academic position of Associate Professor through full Professor.

Candidates must provide not less than 5% effort for the proposed research. Department chairs (including interim or acting chairs) can nominate one candidate per department per school. Applicants must be nominated by their Department Chair.

Please note: applications received without a prior nomination form will not be accepted. Candidates can access the nomination and application forms below. Word versions of all 2026 grant applications can also be accessed via this link (7 files will download; please be sure to use the specific file that corresponds to the grant to which you’re applying): https://we.

tl/t-AEX6XhM1xLPwRsmH Download Stein Innovation Award Application Frequently Asked Questions Am I eligible for a grant? Each RPB grant has different eligibility criteria, which is detailed on the relevant grant webpage. If you have questions about the eligibility details, please reach out to us; we’re happy to help.

Do I need to be at an RPB-supported department to get an individual research award?

While a few of our RPB individual awards (RPB Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship, RPB Career Development Award, and the RPB Physician-Scientist Award) are restricted to departments that have an RPB Unrestricted or Challenge grant, the majority of our awards are open to researchers at any academic medical center in the U.S. The reason that the three awards mentioned above are restricted to RPB-supported departments is that our Departmental Grantees undergo an extremely rigorous peer-review process.

The environment and leadership at these departments have met our stringent criteria and are appropriate venues for the research being conducted by these early- and mid-career researchers, giving us assurance that they will receive outstanding support and mentorship. If you are not sure if your department has a Departmental Grant, visit our current grantees here . Do you fund outside the U.S.?

No, all of our grants are awarded to researchers or departments of ophthalmology at U.S.-based academic medical centers. The RPB International Researcher Collaborators Award supports collaboration between U.S. and outside-the-U.S. researchers; however, the award is made to the U.S. academic medical center, which can then disperse the funds as needed to support the project collaboration.

I received an email about a grant requirement (Year-End Report, Financial Report, Progress Report, etc.). Who do I contact? For Financial Reports and Progress Reports, please contact Director of Grants Management MariaClaudia Lora-Montana ( mlora@rpbusa.

org ). For Year-End Reports (photos, research summaries and bibliographies), please contact Jo Casella ( jcasella@rpbusa. org ).

For more information about all RPB grant requirements, visit our helpful RPB Reports page . I’m a grantee and I published or presented (or plan to publish or present) a paper or poster. Who should I contact?

We love to help promote our grantees’ work! Please reach out to Director of External Affairs Diana Friedman ( dfriedman@rpbusa. org or 646-892-9565 ) to share your good news.

MariaClaudia Lora-Montano Director of Grants Management