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NC TraCS Pilot Program

Find Funding & Proposal Assistance The NC TraCS Translational Research Pilot Program was established to facilitate the transfer of research findings to clinical practice in order to improve the health of the people of North Carolina. This program is designed to encourage and facilitate novel clinical and translational research in its many forms. Cross-disciplinary basic science research addressing the development of therapies, diagnostics or devices applicable to human disease, clinical research/trials, epidemiological studies, and/or community-based research are considered eligible for these awards.

The NC TraCS Pilot Program has awarded 428 pilot grants with budgets from $2,000 to $100,000, to 861 investigators since January 2009. $8.3M has been awarded to investigators from 10 schools and 119 departments/divisions and centers at UNC Chapel Hill and to researchers at 55 other institutions. In January 2013, we submitted a new CTSA grant application to NIH and the success of many of our pilot award recipients were highlighted in numerous ways throughout that document.

Funding for the current CTSA grant ends April 30, 2013. As a result, the next round of TraC$5-50K grants will be due on June 4, 2013, instead of the original posted date of March 26, 2013. This is to ensure that $5-50K pilot award decisions can be made with knowledge of how the CTSA application has fared.

NC TraCS is especially interested in, and will extend priority to, proposals with a focus on one of three areas:

Transformative Technologies – investigators using genomic, proteomic or metabolomics platforms to accelerate a translational discovery toward clinical medicine.

Drugs, Device and Diagnostics Development – investigators that have identified a novel and promising drug target; with priority to proposals that address rare or orphan diseases.

Comparative Effectiveness Research – investigators focused on the study of and dissemination of clinical and translational research in broad populations.

Note that applications are not limited to those that address one of these three areas.

No $2K Grant or Planning Grant applications will be accepted until we are refunded.

Once we hear from NIH about our CTSA application, future pilot due dates will be established and posted on the NC TraCS website.

NC TraCS offers $2,000 grants to assist researchers in implementing a proposed study or move a research project forward by providing rapid access to funds that will support almost any aspect of promising and innovative research.

NC TraCS will award one-year grants of up to $25,000 which must be matched for total awards of up to $50,000. These grants serve as a stimulus for new research initiatives aimed at obtaining sufficient preliminary data to allow new applications for extramural funding.

The NC TraCS Planning Grants aim to stimulate UNC-CH investigators to serve as Principal Investigators for new centers, Roadmap initiatives or multicenter clinical trials.

The TraCS Carolina KickStart Commercialization Grants supports preparation for commercialization of concepts for novel therapeutic small molecules, biologics, diagnostics, or devices.

The CTSA Consortium is promoting inter-institutional collaborations across the 60 CTSA Institutions. It is anticipated that budget requests will range from $10K-$25K direct cost, per CTSA.

The CDTR Grants and Feasibility Program is co-funded by the CDTR and NC TraCS. The program serves to facilitate the success of investigators in the field of diabetes translational research.

The UNC-NCSU Rehabilitation Engineering Pilot Grants was established to facilitate collaboration between UNC and NCSU faculty, and to foster collaboration between undergraduate engineers at NCSU/UNC and Health Sciences students at UNC.

Pilot funding for health care innovation efforts are offered through the newly formed Center for Innovation of the UNC Health Care System and School of Medicine, with funding provided by the Center for Innovation. The program solicits proposals for innovations across a broad spectrum of interest areas, including health care delivery, quality/cost improvement, and translational research that reduce cost and improve patient outcomes. In 2013, the Center will provide up to four awards for as much as $50,000. The RFP process for 2013 has closed but the Center anticipates offering the grants in 2014. Visit the Center for Innovation for more information, or write to innovatehealthcare@med.unc.edu.