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Small Seed Grant Proposals
Up to 10K Available
Introduction
One-year small research seed grants are available to assist APTA Academy of Education (Academy) members in conducting research that investigates a question of importance to the advancement of education in physical therapy. Questions related to the education of patients/clients, licensed PTs/PTAs or PT/PTA students will be considered.
Education research is the scientific field of study that examines education and learning processes and the human attributes, interactions, organizations, and institutions that shape educational outcomes. Scholarship in the field seeks to describe, understand, and explain how learning takes place throughout a person’s life and how formal and informal contexts of education affect all forms of learning. Education research embraces the full spectrum of rigorous methods appropriate to the questions being asked and also drives the development of new tools and methods. https://www.aera.net/About-AERA/What-is-Education-Research
The Academy recognizes that there is a developmental process that occurs in: 1) the researcher or research teams; or 2) the research topic, line or focus in order to meet minimum expectations for larger external grant funding (e.g. validation, reliability and pilot data). Primary investigators and their teams often seek small seed grants that enable these growth processes to occur. These small seed grants often offset costs related to small scale equipment purchases, software purchases, subject enticements or similar critical expenditures that are essential to the research process. The purpose of this small seed grant is to support and cultivate new researchers or lines of investigation by offsetting costs that preclude this process. Therefore, applications should clearly situate the work within the greater context of the planned larger investigation. Grant applicants are prohibited from submitting proposals for both the Small Seed Grants and the larger Research Grants in the same calendar year.
Applications are reviewed once yearly for a maximum budget of $5,000. All budgets are rigorously reviewed and require justification for expenses. Grant recipients must account for all expenditures in the final report and return unused funds to the Academy. Funds cannot be used to attend conferences to disseminate results or for indirect costs or overhead.
Application Process
Submission Deadline: October 1 yearly
Please review all posted grant information prior to beginning the application process.
When writing a grant proposal, include sufficient but concise information that will allow the reviewers to evaluate the proposal. The reviewers might consider your ability to present your proposal clearly and briefly to be an indication of your ability to have a focused approach to your research objective and to complete the project. Use the American Medical Association’s writing and referencing guidelines (see Physical Therapy for examples).
All budgets will be rigorously reviewed and require strong justification for proposed expenditures. Investigators are highly encouraged to budget only essential amounts and not the maximum amount available. Include the costs related to the research grant that will be provided by “in kind” contributions or other sources of funding in the budget. Providing letters of support for “in kind” contributions and resources is highly encouraged. An otherwise good proposal with an inadequate budget justification will not be funded. Grant recipients must submit a full accounting of expenditures with the final report.
Format
The proposal should include all required pages in a single PDF file. Leave a minimum of 1” margins and utilize an 11pt. font. Single spaced is acceptable. The applicant’s last name and the page number should appear in the right-hand margin of the header on each page of the Application (excluding cover sheet) and on any attachments/appendices.
Submission
Fill in all fields and then hit submit. Proposals must be submitted by the deadline to be eligible for review.
Review Procedure
The Academy’s Research Committee reviews and ranks grant applications. Grants are awarded based on merit and the potential scientific contributions to the field of education in physical therapy. In addition, the likelihood of the outcome of the research funded by the seed grant to lead to the greater context of the planned larger investigation is considered. Decisions will be announced in mid-December annually. See Grant Review Instructions.
Reporting Requirements
Please see Terms and Conditions of Research Grants.
The PI of an awarded grant will send a final report to academy@aptaeducation.org (Subject Line: Grant Final Report) no later than 60 days following the end of the grant period. Reprints of manuscripts published from the project should be sent to academy@aptaeducation.org.
Investigators should acknowledge support from the APTA Academy of Education in any presentations or manuscripts.