MSFHR shifts competition deadlines to support applicants involved in COVID-19 emergency response

We announced earlier this week that we were implementing several changes to align with public health recommendations to restrict travel, limit face-to-face gatherings and maintain social distance protocols to stop the spread of COVID-19.

We have been hearing from some of our applicants that they are being called on to support the health-care system’s pandemic response and as a result, will not be able to complete their applications on time. In recognition of these unique circumstances, we are adjusting our current competition deadlines in order to support them in this important work. Below is a summary of the changes we are making to our competition schedules:

I2C and HP-I

We have extended the application deadlines by three months; the new application deadlines are:

• I2C:
  • Deadline: June 30, 2020
  • New award start date: January 1, 2021
• HP-I:
  • Deadline: July 17, 2020
  • New award start date: January 1, 2021

Reach and C2

We have extended the application deadlines by five months; the new application deadlines are:

• Deadline: September 28, 2020
• New award start date: February 1, 2021

Scholar and Research Trainee

Full applications have already been received by MSFHR and are under peer review. Peer review meetings will be conducted virtually in the coming weeks. We are confident that high quality peer-review can be achieved through virtual meetings as we successfully conducted a few virtual review panels last year.

We are moving ahead with our original timelines and anticipate that the awards will still be announced this summer, and maintain their original award start dates of July 1, 2020 for Scholar and September 1, 2020 for Research Trainee.

We are committed to supporting the research community as we face these challenging times. As the situation continues to evolve, we will make further adjustments as needed and post them on the funding page of our website. Please check it regularly for updates and follow us on Twitter for updates on our evolving response to this situation.