Rapid-Response Grants

This call for proposals (CFP) supports time-sensitive, opportunistic studies to evaluate changes in policies or environments with the potential to reach children who are at highest risk for obesity, including African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian American, and Pacific Islander children (ages 3 to 18) who live in low-income communities or communities with limited access to affordable healthy foods and/or safe opportunities for physical activity. Research studies may focus on one or both sides of the energy balance equation - on physical activity (including sedentary behavior), healthy eating or both. Studies funded under this CFP are expected to advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

The annual solicitations and funding cycles of Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research involve a 7- to 9-month period between proposal submission and the start of funding. While those solicitations serve an important purpose, they do not address the need for timely studies on emerging or anticipated changes in policies or environments. This CFP for rapid-response grants is an attempt to address the specific need to support critical research that can only be conducted during a short window of opportunity.

Invited proposals, if awarded, may begin within 12-14 weeks after submission of the full proposal.

No. Research studies may focus on one or both sides of the energy balance equation—on physical activity (including sedentary behavior), healthy eating or both.

The maximum amount for a single grant is $150,000, with a maximum funding period of 12 months. Up to $800,000 total will be awarded for rapid-response research grants in 2008.

The maximum length that a rapid-response project can be funded is 12 months.

There are two types of studies eligible for rapid-response funding: 

• Opportunistic evaluations of imminent changes in policies or environments (i.e., "natural experiments").
• Studies that can inform an ongoing or upcoming policy debate ( e.g., small experimental studies, secondary data analyses, cost-effectiveness analyses, health impact assessments, simulations of policy effects or macro-level policy analyses).

Please refer to the call for proposals document for more information and examples of studies that would be eligible for funding. 

 

No. Studies that are not urgent and time-sensitive are not eligible under this CFP. It is the responsibility of the applicant to clearly demonstrate why the proposed study needs to be funded, conducted and completed on an urgent and time-sensitive basis. Applications under this program must: 1) define the window of opportunity to conduct the research; 2) explain why the window is limited by time and why the usual award cycle for Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research would not be suitable; and 3) outline the relevance of the research to a specific policy or environmental change. 

The final deadline for letters of intent was September 26, 2008. We are no longer accepting Letters of Intent for this CFP.

There are two application stages for the Rapid-Response Grants:

Stage 1: Letter of Intent
All applicants must submit a letter of intent application packet consisting of three documents.  The three required documents include a project information form, a 3-page letter of intent proposal narrative, and biosketches for key personnel.  

 Stage 2: Full Proposal
Within two weeks of submission of the letter of intent, Stage 1 applicants will be notified of review results, and selected applicants will be invited by e-mail or letter to submit a full proposal. Full proposals consist of an executive summary, a project narrative of 20 pages (1.5 line spacing), budget, budget narrative and additional supporting documents. The project narrative includes: the project's significance and need for rapid review; research aims and hypotheses; detailed methods and analysis plans; communication and dissemination plans; and timeline.

All invited full proposals must be submitted only through the RWJF Grantmaking Online system at http://grantmaking.rwjf.org/papher. Applicants invited to submit full proposals will be given additional information about formatting requirements and instructions on preparing and submitting the full proposal.

Deadlines for receipt of invited full proposals are August 15 and October 15, 2008. Proposals submitted by these deadlines will be reviewed using an accelerated external review process to assure that funding can begin within 12- to 14-weeks of the submission date. Full proposals received after August 15 will not be processed or reviewed until the October 15 deadline.

 

The letter of intent method saves your time and ours. We review all of the letters of intent and invite a limited number of applicants to submit a more detailed full proposal. 

The correct answer for this call for proposals is three pages (1.5 line spacing). RWJF has many national programs that accept brief proposals (or "letters of intent") in addition to the brief proposals sent directly to the Foundation. Each national program has its own requirements.

In order to be fair to applicants who follow the three page (1.5 line spaced) requirement, letter of intent proposal narratives that exceed the specified page limit or that do not otherwise conform to the formatting requirements will not be reviewed. 

No. You may include up to 20 key references in your letter of intent. References are optional and will not count toward the page limit. Please refer to the letter of intent proposal narrative template for additional instructions. 

Within two weeks of e-mail submission of the letter of intent, Stage 1 applicants will be notified of review results, and selected applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal. 

Due to RWJF policy, we do not give written feedback on letters of intent or full proposals.

We do not require that you include a detailed budget in your letter of intent. As part of the letter of intent, applicants typically give a summary of the total amount requested. We also ask that you identify any partner organizations or co-funding. Remember this is very brief. Applicants invited to submit a full proposal will need to provide detailed budget information via a budget worksheet and narrative.

Yes. All applicants must submit a letter of intent application packet consisting of three documents.  Please follow the instructions and include the following three documents:

• A project information form indicating the title of the proposal; applicant organization; principal investigator and co-investigators; total amount requested; proposed project start and end dates; whether the project involves healthy eating, physical activity (including sedentary behavior) or both; and other background questions.

• A 3-page (1.5 line spacing) letter of intent proposal narrative describing:
  
  • justification of the need for rapid-review;
  • a description of the specific program, event or policy change to be studied and its potential impact on reducing childhood obesity;
  • an overview of the proposed research questions and methods.
  • a timeline of the project; and
  • a list of any organizations involved with the project and any co-funding available.

• Biosketches for key personnel

(Note: No supporting documents are allowed at the Letter of Intent stage.)

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation supports an indirect rate of up to 12 percent.

All proposals submitted to Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research are confidential. We cannot allow third parties to have copies of letter of intents or full proposals. We will provide descriptions of funded projects on our Web sites (www.activelivingresearch.org and www.healthyeatingresearch.org).

The maximum page length for full proposal narrative is 20 pages (excluding Literature Citations and Workplan), but there is no suggested page count for each section of the narrative. Full proposals must be submitted using the full proposal narrative template found in the RWJF Grantmaking Online system.

Deadlines for receipt of full proposals are August 15 and October 15, 2008. Proposals submitted by these deadlines will be reviewed using an accelerated external review process to assure that funding can begin within 12- to 14-weeks of the submission date. Full proposals received after August 15 will not be processed or reviewed until the October 15 deadline.

Appendices must be submitted through the RWJF Grantmaking online system. Applicants invited to submit a full proposal should refer to the instructions in the Additional Documents section of the RWJF Grantmaking Online application site. (Note: No supporting documents are allowed at the Letter of Intent stage.)

Applicants should demonstrate familiarity with the literature of multiple disciplines when constructing their proposals. Literature reviews are best written for a general audience. Reviewers are drawn from different disciplines, so it is best to avoid using the vocabulary of a single discipline. Acronyms and jargon should be defined in the proposal.

For more information about the 2008 call for proposal for rapid-response grants, please direct inquiries as follows:

For research that relates primarily to physical activity or sedentary behavior, contact:
Chad Spoon, M.R.P.
Research Coordinator, Active Living Research
Phone: (619) 260-5539
E-mail: cspoon@projects.sdsu.edu

 

For research that relates primarily to healthy eating, contact:
Laura Klein, M.P.H.
Research Coordinator, Healthy Eating Research
Phone: (800) 578-8636
E-mail: healthyeating@umn.edu

 

For research that relates to healthy eating and physical activity equally, contact either individual.

 

Please refer to the program Web sites at www.healthyeatingresearch.org and www.activelivingresearch.org.

There have been preliminary discussions to release a 2009 call for proposals for rapid-response grants, but no final decisions have been made at this time. If offered again, the program may include alterations from the current call for proposal. Any future Rapid-response CFP will be posted on the Active Living Research and Health Eating Research Web sites.