Pilot Grants

The Boston Area Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center

is now accepting

Pilot and Feasibility Research Grant Award Applications

For studies of

Diabetes Mellitus and Its Complications

The Boston Area Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center (BADERC) is funded by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Diseases (NIDDK) to support research in diabetes and its complications. The BADERC P&F program welcomes all proposals relevant to diabetes and its complications, from basic to translational to clinical.

Research grants up to $50,000 over one year (with the possibility of a second year of equivalent funding via competing renewal demonstrating progress) will be awarded for meritorious proposals from candidates whose eligibility is defined by one or more of the following four criteria:

  1. Junior faculty (Instructor or Assistant Professor) without past or current NIH project-level (e.g. R01 or similar) support to conduct diabetes research. Those with 100% committed research effort that precludes acceptance of additional federal funding effort are not eligible.
  2. Established non-diabetes researchers who have an innovative idea relevant to diabetes.
  3. Investigators developing new research techniques/technologies that could be used in a BADERC Core.

Candidates must have a faculty-level appointment. Non-independent fellows are not eligible to apply. Multiple PI’s are not allowed.

The funding period for the 2025 cycle is now closed.

Please check back in Fall 2025.

 

If you qualify based on one of the three criteria listed above, please complete the BADERC P&F LOI form. If your proposed research is compatible with BADERC criteria, we will send instructions for the preparation of a five-page application for a Pilot and Feasibility Research Grant Award. Funding for successful applications will begin approximately March 1, 2025.

Assemble the following documents in a single PDF document (in this order):

  1. completed letter of Intent form (blank form found on the following page),
  2. an NIH-style biosketch, and
  3. certified NIH-style Other Support page.

Entitle the PDF “LastName_FirstName.PDF”, and send via email to: MGHBADERCadmin@mgb.org

Questions may be directed to:

Deborah Wexler, M.D., M.Sc.                                                
Director, BADERC Pilot & Feasibility Award Program
50 Staniford Street, Suite 301                                                
Boston, MA 02114
dwexler@mgh.harvard.edu
Tel. (617) 726-8767

The Boston Area Diabetes and Endocrinology Research Center (BADERC) has administered a thriving Pilot and Feasibility (P&F) program over the past 22 years. Over the lifetime of the Center, the BADERC P&F program has received over 440 applications and has given over 108 awards. Awardees have leveraged the P&F funding into a significant number of subsequent NIH and foundation grants: 63% of awardees have attained a subsequent, related NIH R01/U01/P01 grant as principal investigator, 12% have attained a K award, 25% have obtained ADA or JDRF funding as a principal investigator, and 24% have obtained other categories of NIH funding.

The BADERC P&F program has fostered numerous careers in diabetes-related research: 91% of P&F funded investigators remain in diabetes-related research. The most recent 10 years of 64 P&F projects has spawned 85 NIH R-level project grants or equivalent, conservatively estimated at more than $93,000,000 in direct dollars.

P&F Awardees over the past 10 years have published 231 peer-reviewed publications related to the P&F award in impactful journals including Cell, Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Metabolism, Cell Metabolism, JCI, JCI Insight, and Cell Reports. Papers coauthored by the 2009-2019 P&F awardees include 16 in Nature, 14 in Nature Medicine, 17 in Cell, 31 in Cell Metabolism, 5 in Science, 26 in PNAS, 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine, 14 in JCI, and 4 in Nature Metabolism.

Last Updated on April 14, 2025