ISSCD – Celiac Disease Foundation Research Fellowship Award

The objective of the International Society for the Study of Celiac Disease (ISSCD) – Celiac Disease Foundation Research Fellowship Award is to support protected research time of early career clinicians (clinical science) and investigators (basic science) towards a career in celiac disease research.

• The ISSCD-CDF fellowship must be held at an Academic, Clinical or University institution. It is open to candidates around the world pursuing basic science or clinical post-doctoral research in any area of celiac disease and its complications. ISSCD membership must be maintained throughout the three-year duration of the award.
• Candidates with an MD, PhD, or equivalent degree in any area of science may apply. Candidates having completed a PhD, MD, equivalent degree, or clinical fellowship with no more than seven years lapsed since their first academic appointment before the deadline of this application are eligible to apply.
  • For clinicians, any clinical training following a PhD is excluded from the total seven years.
  • For scientists, years as a post doc before being awarded a permanent post in an academic institution are not included in the total seven years post PhD, unless no permanent post in academia has yet been awarded, in which case the applicant must not have more than 15 years as a post doc to be eligible to apply.
  • For clinical scientists, a maximum of seven years since first appointment to assistant clinical or research professor is allowed.
  • If part of a permanent post or postdoc position is allocated to teaching, this time may be subtracted (e.g. one year in a full-time permanent assistant professor position in which 30% teaching is required counts as 0.7 years).
• An appropriately documented leave of absence, such as parental or medical leave, will not be counted toward the above seven-year eligibility criteria. Exceptional circumstances may also be considered. Exemption requests must be submitted to [email protected] at least three weeks prior to the application deadline and be clearly indicated in the submitted application documents.
• At the time of submission of the application, the applicant may not hold another award with similar objectives that could be perceived as a duplication of funding.
• Applicants who have held a previous award are eligible to re-apply. Applicants with a current award may apply in the final year of their active award, so long as the award will end before this Research Fellowship term begins.

• The stipend for a post-doctoral research fellowship in either basic science or clinical science is up to $100,000 USD per year, for a maximum of three years.
• Funds are intended for use towards the salary of the successful candidate and/or for operational budget covering the research project. Details of how funds are to be used should be included in the budget section of the application.

Applicants must use the Budget Template, as provided in the application form. All expenses must be explained and justified in a budget narrative submitted with the Research Plan.

The following expenses are allowed:

• Salary and benefits of the principal investigator
• Salary and benefits of research assistants, laboratory technicians and/or other key personnel
• Biostatistics support
• Supplies, animals, equipment, or other materials necessary for the proposed research
• Travel costs, not to exceed $5,000 USD

The following expenses are not allowed:

• Indirect costs and overheads

Patient and public engagement means working with those affected to share information in an active two-way process, e.g., holding discussion workshops around research outcomes and formulating ways to disseminate research to the target audience in the most effective way. It is expected that the Research Fellow will participate in this activity and will budget for related expenses.

Any applicant intending to use animals in their research must provide full justification and address the areas of replacement, refinement, and reduction of animals in research.

• Within the application, applicants are required to demonstrate how they have considered avoidance of the use of animals (replacement), minimized the number of animals per experiment (reduction), and minimized suffering and improved animal welfare (refinement).

All applications must meet US minimum standards in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations Title 9 (9 CFR 2.31) and Title 21 (21 CFR Part 56).

Any applicant intending to use human tissue must confirm within their application that their practice will comply with the appropriate legislation and follow the relevant codes of practice. The type of tissue and quantity must be justified. All applications must meet US minimum standards in accordance with the Code of Federal Regulations Title 21 (21 CFR Part 50 and 21 CFR Part 56).

Review and evaluation of the application will be carried out be a multidisciplinary panel selected by the ISSCD Board. If necessary, and based on the number of applications received, external expert reviewers will be involved from the membership at large of ISSCD.

• Recipients must submit scientific and financial progress reports to ISSCD annually and final reports 60 days after the end date of the award period. Report templates and instructions will be provided to awardees, at the time of acceptance. Second- and third-year funding are contingent upon the submission and accuracy of this documentation.
• All publications, presentations and abstracts arising from work funded by this program must acknowledge the joint support of the ISSCD and the Celiac Disease Foundation.

The application process is now closed.

Please email [email protected] for questions or call Marissa Mahoney at 844.593.8169, x110.

This research award is offered in partnership with the Society for the International Society for the Study of Celiac Disease (ISSCD). Learn more at www.isscd-global.org.