AOTrauma Research Fund
Clinical Outcome Measurements of Fracture
Treatment
The AOTrauma Research Commission (AOTRC) is pleased to announce the
following call.
1 Introduction
AOTrauma Research (AOTR) has established a fund to promote high quality research
ultimately relevant to the clinical management of trauma. To focus the resources of this fund,
AOTR has allocated funds for research programs designed to address important clinical
problems. In this vein, AOTR has allocated CHF 2,500,000 over 5 years (CHF 500,000/ per
annum) to support a program to study Clinical Outcome Measurements of Fracture
Treatment.
This is an open call for consortium with pre-proposals.
2 Call for application
2.1 Introduction
AOTrauma Research plans to fund a Clinical Priority Program (CPP) to promote research in
the area of clinical outcome measurements of fracture treatment. Particular interest is the
development and validation of tools that allow clinical outcome measurements of fracture
treatment, however, other relevant topics will also be considered. The aim is to support
research that will either directly affect the patient outcome, or will generate ideas ultimately
translatable to clinical practice.
A second important program goal is to promote collaboration among basic scientists, clinical
scientists, and clinicians. Scientists focusing on a particular area are encouraged to identify
other scientists performing complementary research. he plan is not to fund a number of
individual projects with little relevance to one another, but rather to support a program
consisting of numerous projects where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Call for proposals and proposal guide
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Interested clinicians are invited to submit a pre-proposal outlining their proposed program.
These proposals will be reviewed and successful applicants will be asked to submit a full and
detailed proposal.
2.2 The successful pre-proposal
The successful proposal is expected to be collaborative, inclusive, and comprehensive in
scope and approach. Areas of particular interest is the development and validation of tools
that allow clinical outcome measurements of fracture treatment, but this is not meant to
exclude other areas of research related to patient outcome that are particularly promising.
The application should define a program leader who will be the central coordinator
responsible for communication with AOTrauma Research and for the overall management of
the program. Applicants are expected to define their own research consortium and combine
all consortium members’ efforts into one comprehensive proposal. Preferential consideration
will be given to consortiums that include the AO Research Institute (ARI), and/or AO Clinical
Investigation (AOCID). (To learn more about the AO Research Institute, visit:
www.aofoundation.org/ari and for AO Clinical Investigation, visit: www.aofoundation.org/cid).
Applicants are encouraged to apply for the entirety of the fund available for the lifetime of the
CPP (CHF 500,000.00/per annum for 5 years).
Budgets are not necessary for the pre-proposal. Applicants should, however, consider that
the maximum funding available is CHF 500,000.00/year for 5 years to include a maximum of
15% overhead.
2.3 Pre-proposal outline
I.
Cover page
II.
Program abstract (one page abstract, providing a succinct description of the
program)
III. Administrative information
a. Coordinating applicant
i.
Name
ii.
Title
iii.
Institution
iv. Contact information
b. Collaborating applicants
i.
Name
ii.
Title
iii.
Institution
iv. Contact information
IV. Introduction
V.
Program aims
VI. Individual projects (For each individual project in the proposed program provide a
one-page summary)
a. Project title
b. Principal investigator
c. Co-investigators
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d. Specific aims
e. Brief introduction and background
f. Summary of proposed methods
g. Expected results
h. Significance
i. Timeline—The investigators should tell when in the course of the program this
project will initiate and finish. If the project is dependant on the results of some
other project in the program, the investigators should note this.
VII. Program Summary—The applicants should describe the overall significance of the
program. In particular, they should detail how the individual projects complement
one another (two pages).
.
2.4 Applications
Applicants should submit their pre-proposal via email to: [email protected].
2.5 Application evaluation
Pre-proposals will be evaluated by the AOTrauma research commission. Successful
applicants will be invited to submit full proposals, and instructions will be provided. The final
proposals will undergo a peer-review scientific evaluation by invited external international
experts. Based on these reviews, the AOTrauma Research Commission will select the
successful application. The decisions of the commission are final and binding. The peerreview critiques will be provided for consideration only to the successful awardees. No
critiques will be provided for other applicants.
2.6 ARI Research Fellowship
The successful consortium may nominate one trainee orthopaedic surgeon for a 6-month
research fellowship in the ARI in Davos, Switzerland, focusing on Bone Infection. This
fellowship is granted by AOTrauma Research (CHF 3,500 per month) during the first year of
the CPP in addition to the overall CPP grant. The purpose of that ARI fellowship is to provide
a motivated clinician with on-site research training to gain experience in R&D projects and to
foster the collaboration between the consortium and the AO Research Institute.
3 Funding
3.1 Funds
The purpose of these grants is to encourage investigators by providing funding of up to CHF
2.5 million (CHF 500’000/per annum for 5 years). Applicants should note that a maximum of
15% of any AOTRC grants may be consumed by overhead charges. Please note the
overhead shall be deducted from the grant total.
3.2 Research grant
Successful research grant projects must be staged and benchmarked for annual milestone
reviews with continuation of funding dependent upon meeting the deliverables or specific
performance accomplishments in an audit.
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4 Terms and conditions
One requirement to receiving a grant is that you must be or become an AOTrauma
associate.
5 Deadlines
The following are the non-negotiable deadlines:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Open call for pre-proposals announcement: August 28, 2016
Deadline for pre-proposal submission: October 20, 2016
Successful applicants will be invited to present the pre-proposal to the AOTRC via video
conference on October 28 or 29, 2016
Invitation to submit full proposal: October 31, 2016
Full proposals due: January 31, 2017
Award announcement: June 2017
Contract negotiations: June 2017
6 Contact information
Please address all correspondence to:
AO Foundation
AOTrauma
Attn. Philipp Buescher
Stettbachstrasse 6
8600 Dübendorf
Switzerland
Email: [email protected]
Call for proposals and proposal guide
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