Affinity Groups

Updated: April 24, 2023

The CBC Affinity Groups are cross-institutional communities centered around specific topics, which promote collaborative exploration of the community’s delineated key scientific questions. Based on Team Science concepts, the Affinity Group will engender collaborations which the community funds through inter-institutional $250,000 awards.

Neuroscience Affinity Group Overview

Goals I Components I Process I Details & Eligibility I Available Funding I LOI Preparation I LOI Submission I FAQS I Contact Us

GOALS:

This overarching goal of the Neuroscience Affinity Group is to provide a framework for selecting high-risk/high-reward research projects in the Neuroscience space. The Chicago Biomedical Consortium (CBC) is committed to funding some of the top ideas but anticipates that other funders will be interested if the platform is built to engender new collaborations for high-impact ideas.

The objectives of this program are to:

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COMPONENTS:

The Affinity Group is an inclusive community of Chicago neuroscientists. It is organized into different layers that determine the community’s most important questions and propose collaborative lines of inquiry for CBC, and potentially other foundation funding.

The goal is to build a collaborative platform where the CBC funds several high-priority collaborations, but which articulates a longer list of curated, vetted, collaborative approaches to fundamental questions that are attractive to many different funders. The members of the Affinity Group will have the opportunity to submit proposals for CBC funding, in return we ask for a commitment from the Affinity Group of approximately 14 hours over a three-month period of time.

The layers are as follows:

• Steering Committee (3-4 people) The community rules of engagement are set by a Steering Committee of senior scientists from across the institutions who are committed to building the community. The Steering Committee is establishing an inclusive and diverse community for the next generation of scientists and should be foremost conscious of this goal.
  
  
• Neuroscience Affinity Group (30-50 people) This layer is the community of the Steering Committee and researchers (including faculty and postdocs) that will form the Scientific Teams.
  
  • Scientific Teams are formed between 2-3 collaborative scientists to develop projects that address key questions.
    
    

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PROCESS OVERVIEW:

The following process, to be refined by the Affinity Group itself, is proposed.
A detailed copy of the process can be downloaded HERE

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ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA AND REQUIREMENTS:

• Each Scientific Team will be composed of two-three scientists from at least two institutions. At least one of the Principal Investigators (PI) in the Scientific Team needs to be a Research Faculty or Tenure-Track faculty member affiliated with a CBC member institution: Northwestern University, The University of Chicago, and/or University of Illinois Chicago.
  
  • The majority of the Affinity Group award will go toward paying salary for a postdoc employed at a CBC member institution at a salary base range of $65,000-$90,000 per year, depending on the institution’s salary pay grade, plus benefits, for two years.
  • The remaining CBC funds are to be used for experiment costs. Please note that for co-PIs whose home institution is not a CBC member institution, the maximum portion of the Affinity Group Award total that may be subcontracted to non-member institutions is up to 25% of the total Affinity Group Award, and should be determined after the postdoc salary is accounted for.
• The Scientific Team must show the collaborative nature of the given project by providing a detailed research plan with shared resources. A detailed research application will be submitted by the finalists for their final funding application.
  
  • The Scientific Team’s participants should each be affiliated with a different home institution.
  • A detailed plan for the postdoc’s training should be submitted focusing on techniques and resources.
  • A justification on how the training will help progress toward the postdoc’s next career stage or future grant applications (e.g., K99/R00 award or faculty position) should be provided.
  • Each Scientific Team should identify the postdoc who will be developing the submitted research project.
  • Whenever possible a designated postdoc should participate in the Affinity Group.
• The Scientific Teams should not already be funded for closely related research activities.
  
  • Research projects submitted by Scientific Teams cannot be pending or under review at federal funding institutions/agencies.
• Funding is not expected to be distributed evenly among the CBC institutions.
• Multiple applications can be submitted from each institution.
• Applications should show both innovation and scientific merit. Call for proposals that will be reviewed based on:
  
  • Impact
  • Cross-discipline interaction
  • Unique fundamental question/answer
  • High-risk/high-reward research
  • Sustainability beyond the award

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AVAILABLE FUNDING:

• CBC Affinity Group awards can range up to $250,000 total for use over two years. Given the limitations in finding and hiring personnel, the majority of the CBC Affinity Group award will go toward paying salary for a postdoc employed at a CBC member institution at a salary base range of $65,000-$90,000 per year, depending on the institution’s salary pay grade, plus benefits, for two years.
• The funded projects should have no expectation of continuation or renewal by the CBC.
• Please note that the three CBC institutions have waived all indirect costs. CBC does not allow facilities and administrative (F&A)/ Indirect Costs on any funded project.

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LETTER OF INTENT (LOI) PREPARATION:

The Letter of Intent MUST be prepared according to the guidelines listed below. All pages and documents listed below should be assembled into a SINGLE PDF document in the order listed. Portfolios will NOT BE ACCEPTED. Name the PDF file starting with “AG_LOI_” followed by the last name of the PI designated as contact person (e.g., AG_LOI_smith.pdf). LOIs not conforming to these guidelines will BE RETURNED FOR REVISIONS.

Section 1:  Affinity Group LOI Submission Form (Page 1-3)

• Download the 3-page Affinity Group LOI Submission Form, fill out and append as page 1-3 of your submission. (If the Word document does not come up automatically for your browser, please find the file in your computer’s Downloads folder.)
• The LOI Submission form will include:
  • Page 1: Title Page
    • Complete all checkboxes by selecting either YES or NO and provide information when needed.
  • Page 2: One-page Letter of Intent (LOI) outlining:
    • The key question(s) from the workshop that the team is addressing
    • The proposed collaboration, the topic, high-level approach, and the key questions of the team’s project
    • The justification of any additional source of funds needed to complete the project
  • Page 3: Considerations for postdoc training – up to one-page outlining:
    • Provide the rationale for the proposed research training program
    • Describe the role of participating faculty
    • Describe the proposed training opportunity and the endpoints that will be used to evaluate success

Section 2:  Two-page budget from each participating PI (Page 4 and beyond)

• By special arrangement with the Research Administration Offices at the CBC universities, it is not necessary to obtain institutional endorsement of applications before they are submitted to the CBC. However, the CBC may share applications with Research Administrators during the review process, and the CBC will require institutional endorsements before any final funding decisions are made. The proposed research activities and budget requests must thus be within institutional guidelines in order for an application to be successful. (Note: PIs may claim up to 2% effort/salary relief. Graduate student tuition and tuition remission is not allowed on CBC awards. Award funds cannot be used for correlative studies associated with ongoing clinical trials.) All expenses from a single institution should be entered on a university-specific budget form (fillable PDF) downloadable from here: NU budget form, UChicago budget form, UIC budget form. Each PI can include travel expenses of $1000/application and publication expenses of $500/PI. Additional continuation pages may be used as needed for Budget Justification.
• The scope of work for each PI must be stated in the Budget Justification, including the research that will be carried out in the PI’s laboratory.
• Voluntary committed cost sharing is allowed to conduct additional experiments based on Institutional approval.

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Letter of Intent (LOI) Submission

Completed LOIs MUST be submitted online. Clearly designate the contact person on the LOI. The contact person will be responsible for submitting the LOI.

The Neuroscience Affinity Group Letter of Intent (LOI) Submission portal is currently CLOSED*.
*Note: Letter of Intent (LOI) deadline was Tuesday, May 30, 2023.
Check back soon for more information about the fall Affinity Group Award schedule.

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FAQs:

Download FAQs

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Updated: March 20, 2023

If you have questions, please contact:

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