About Closing the Gap Summit Awards
Part of Massey’s strategic Summit meetings, the Closing the Gap Summit Award is designed to promote catchment area, community-engaged and cancer disparities-relevant research with an emphasis on Massey’s four disease priority areas – breast, lung, gastrointestinal (GI) and prostate cancers. Summit meetings will be held throughout the year, each with an emphasis on one of the four priority cancers. Summit attendees are eligible to submit a letter of intent (LOI) for pilot project funding within a month of the Summit meeting. Two to three letters of intent will be invited to submit a full application following each Summit meeting.
- April 19, 2022: Breast Cancer Summit
- TBD: Lung Cancer Summit
- TBD: GI Cancers Summit
- TBD: Prostate Cancer Summit
Award details
- Up to $75,000 will be awarded following each of the four planned Summits
- All VCU faculty and trainees who participated in the summit associated with the award are invited to submit
- Proposals should comprise a multi-principal investigator team, including at least two investigators (either an interdisciplinary dyad or a senior/junior dyad and one Community Champion), however teams can be larger
- At least one Community Champion must be included in the development of the project. Please contact Dr. Maria Thomson at cancerchamps@vcu.edu to discuss engagement of a Community Champion in your proposal.
- Team leads should be from different disciplines/perspectives/expertise
LOI requirements
- LOI’s are due within 30 days of the most recent Summit
- LOIs should include the name, department, role, mentor, concept title and a 250-word project description
- LOIs should be submitted to Lisa Mallory at malloryld@vcu.edu
Download the Massey pilot LOI form
Upcoming deadlines and award dates
- May 17, 2022: LOIs due for Breast Cancer Summit abstracts by 5:00 p.m. (EST)
- June 15, 2022: Selected applicant(s) will be invited to submit a full, 6-page application. Massey administration will assign a science writer/proposal developer for each full application
- July 15, 2022: Full application due by 5:00 p.m. (EST)
- August 1, 2022: Tentative project start date
Questions about Closing the Gap Pilot Awards?
Lisa Mallory, Senior program coordinator(804) 316-3030
malloryld@vcu.edu