Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund

Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund is sponsored by Ryan Family Foundation and Northwestern University. Accelerates life sciences research with immediate societal impact, supporting transformative projects from Northwestern researchers.

Pat & Shirley Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund | PAT & SHIRLEY RYAN FAMILY RESEARCH ACCELERATION FUND PAT & SHIRLEY RYAN FAMILY RESEARCH ACCELERATION FUND Pat & Shirley Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund The Pat & Shirley Ryan Family Research Acceleration Fund provides seed grants to Northwestern University faculty to speed up the commercialization of innovative and high-potential research in the life sciences.

The Fund will advance translational research discoveries in both engineering and medicine with the potential to have a meaningful and immediate impact on society. Proposals are sought for critical research to scale the “valley of death” for established research programs that will then enable private sector (industry or investor) or translational government (SBIR, ARPA-H, etc.) funding.

The societal impact and potential for commercialization will be considered. Areas of interest include drug discovery, sensing and measurement, rehabilitation, regenerative medicine, surgery and transplantation, artificial intelligence and computation. See the original announcement for more information.

Past awardees are listed here . Application Due Dates: September 1 and March 1 of every year at 9 am CST until Sept. 1, 2031 The total award amount in FY 2025 is expected to be about $4.

375 million through two rounds of competition. Typical awards will be funded with a one-year budget of $100,000 to $300,000, though other amounts will be considered when justified. The typical funding period is one year.

Anticipated starting date is August 1 for March 1 submissions and Feb. 1 for September 1 submissions. PIs must have an NU faculty appointment and the majority of the budget must be spent at NU.

The project does not have other external sources of support at the time of proposal awarded. A PI can serve as Lead on only one proposal and can be a co-PI on a maximum of one additional proposal. Lead PIs currently funded by the Ryan Acceleration Fund are ineligible to submit projects as a lead PI in this round.

An individual cannot be a PI on more than 2 concurrently funded projects.

The proposal should include the following components, in single-spaced text, 12-point font, 1-inch margins: Lead PI’s name, position, department, school, email Key personnel (co-PIs) names, rank, department, school, email Indicate proposal topic areas (select one) Health IT/Data Sciences/Analytics the potential for the proposed work to enable critical advances towards meeting this need the next steps, both near-term and longer-term, that may be needed to translate/commercialize the work PROJECT SUMMARY SLIDE (use this PowerPoint Template ) PROJECT DESCRIPTION (maximum length of 3 pages, including references) Vision – Expand upon the unmet need and the societal impact of your approach Explain how your approach compares to current state-of-the art Describe the status of your work including key results and data Describe how your approach addresses the barriers and gaps towards achieving a solution.

Justification for Support – with an explanation of why the project is not a strong candidate for other support Describe your one-year research plan, breaking down your strategy into milestones Explain how achieving the milestones is critical to translation/commercialization Describe your plans to seek follow-on external funding, highlighting how your milestone outcomes could enable this future funding Describe how your project can be translated/commercialized Include information on market opportunity, size, estimated timeline, and competitors Team – including expertise and contribution of key team members References – can use 9-point font size; not to exceed 0.

25 pages If this is a resubmission from a previous round, please include a description of how this proposal addresses the prior feedback. (maximum length of 1 page) DETAILED BUDGET (use the Excel template ) Examples of allowable direct expense categories: faculty salary, postdocs, research staff, supplies, fee for service, PhD students funded as Research Assistants [See https://sponsoredresearch. northwestern.

edu/docs/graduate-student-rates-sponsored-research. xlsx for budget guidance.] Examples of non-allowable direct expense categories: F&A, administrative support, and subawards.

Anticipated starting date is August 1 for March 1 submissions and Feb. 1 for September 1 submissions. NIH BIOSKETCH for each participating key personnel faculty member ENDORSEMENT LETTER from the Chair or the Center Director of the PI.

Proposals should be submitted here . Proposals will be reviewed by an expert panel and a University Advisory Committee and recommended for funding to President Schill and the Ryan Family Foundation. Notification of outcomes will be sent via email.

What is the impact of this proposed project on the status quo? To what extent does the proposed project establish an important advance or new standard for the targeted application (disease, device, diagnostic, process, tool, etc.)? ​ Technical basis & differentiation How innovative is the proposed approach?

Are the comparisons with existing approaches convincing and grounded? ​ Do the proposed milestones represent critical next steps towards commercialization? (Do the one-year milestones address the most important/expected next questions from an investor’s/partner’s perspective?)

​ Will accomplishing the milestones lead to external funding to advance commercialization? Has the team outlined a realistic overall path to commercialization? Team/Near-term execution​ How confident are you that the team can achieve the milestones with the proposed budget?

Is the team qualified and the budget reasonable? ​ Awardees will be required to submit an annual progress report within 60 days of the anniversary date. On 07.

17. 24 we held a Zoom information session. Watch the video here.

(VPN required.) Questions should be addressed to ryanrafund@northwestern. edu .

The Request for Proposals (RFP) will be disseminated in multiple ways to NU faculty.