SCHOOL OF MEDICINE RESEARCH OPPORTUNITY FUND

PROGRAM OVERVIEW
The Funding Program intends to provide rapid funding for Investigators in the School of Medicine. The program is distinct from the President’s Research Fund in that it is designed to support:

1) research to obtain final data for a biomedical research proposal to be submitted for extramural  funding,* 

2) the purchase of innovative instrumentation or technologies to be used to benefit multiple investigators. 

*Requests for funding must provide strong rationale and urgency for the impact of technology 
and/or data that is needed for grant applications and why the ROF mechanism is appropriate. 
If the need is for data to submit a revised grant, then the critiques of previous grants are required for 
application review. The School of Medicine Research Opportunity Fund is provided by the Saint 
Louis University Research Institute. The Research Institute Goals, which extended through this 
Research Opportunity Fund initiative, are to: 

1) Achieve and sustain annual research expenditure growth that places SLU among the fastestgrowing universities. 

2) Establish eminence in strategic research priority areas. 

3) Raise SLU’s profile and reputation as a world-class research university. 

4) Recruit and retain eminent research leaders and invest in their work.

5) Increase federal, industry, and philanthropic funding for the research conducted at SLU. 

Application Deadline: 10th Day of Any Month by 5 pm CST** 
 

Award Decision: 10th Day of the Following Month**
**If the 10th falls on a holiday or weekend, then the deadline will be on the next business day. 

Investigators should submit their application through the OpenWater portal before the monthly 
deadline. In developing applications for this funding opportunity, investigators must focus on their 
plan to procure extramural funding and describe how funding this request will improve the 
likelihood of extramural funding success. The following information should be submitted: 

1. Project Narrative, single-spaced, in Arial 11 font, 0.5-inch margins (2 page maximum). At the end 
of this narrative 2-3 sentences should address how the proposal meets the design of the ROF. 

2. An updated Biosketch in the current NIH format for Principal Investigator (5 page maximum) 

3. A list of SOM collaborators that have a conflict of interest for proposal evaluation 

4. Budget and timeline including quotes as needed, and justification for instrumentation if  requested 

If the Project Narrative exceeds 2 pages, the application will be administratively rejected. Proposals 
will be administratively reviewed for completeness and will not be reviewed until all information is 
collected. Once deemed complete, the proposal will be submitted to the Research Planning 
Committee (RPC). Investigators will be notified of the Committee’s funding recommendation via 
email. 
 

AVAILABLE PROGRAM FUNDING

Applicants may request funding while funds are available and must be used by June 30, 2025. 
Budgets will be evaluated carefully. Items including equipment will be considered and should 
include justification of a unique need for equipment that will serve multiple investigators. 
 

APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS

Applicants can be non-tenure track, tenure-track, or tenured faculty in the School of Medicine. For 
research fellows or trainees, the mentor (faculty member) must submit the application as PI. 
Describe within the application the trainee-mentor circumstance. 
 

APPLICATION REVIEW

All members of the RPC are welcome to participate in the review of the proposals. Applications will 
be reviewed by two members of the RPC. A non-member of the RPC will be invited to review an 
application if additional expertise is required for an adequate review. The NIH scoring system (1-9) 
will evaluate the impact of the proposal meeting the goals of the program highlighted in the first two 
paragraphs of this announcement. A high priority will be evaluating the potential return on 
investment for the proposal. Likely, proposal discussion by the committee will only be considered 
for the most meritorious applications with an average score of 2 or less. The membership of the 
RPC will vote on each proposal following recommendations by reviewers and discussions of 
proposals. 
 

AWARD PROCESS/TERMS

A PI receiving approval for an award will be notified of the specifics via email. All applicable 
regulatory approvals (IRB and/or IACUC) must be approved before issuing of award. The PI must 
use the awarded funds only for the approved studies. Awarded funds will be available to the PI 
through June 30, 2025, and may not exceed available program funding. Investigators will be asked 
to complete a brief survey, annually for 3 years after the Research Opportunity Fund award expires, 
to assist in capturing the Return on Investment (ROI) (e.g., proposal submissions, awards, 
publications, other outcomes, etc.) for this funding program. 

Questions? Email sandra.cornell@health.slu.edu