The Smith Family Foundation: Odyssey Award was created to fuel creativity and innovation in junior investigators in the basic sciences. The award supports the pursuit of high impact ideas to generate breakthroughs and drive new directions in biomedical research. The awards will fund high-risk, high-reward pilot projects solicited from our brightest junior faculty in the region. Faculty who are between 4 and 9 years from their initial faculty appointment who have not received tenure are eligible to apply.The two-year Award supports established junior faculty engaged in basic biomedical research. Investigators in the physical sciences (physics, chemistry and engineering) whose projects focus on biomedical science are also encouraged to apply. Clinical research will not be supported
· Applicants must be full-time, independent faculty at academic research institutions who have not yet achieved tenure or its equivalent by the funding start date of July 1, 2021.
· Applicants must have received their first independent faculty appointment on or between July 1, 2012 and July 1, 2017.
· If an applicant has been on medical or family leave, or if research was interrupted for other reasons, this period of absence does not count towards eligibility. In these cases please address any gaps in work history in the Personal Statement on the Biosketch. The chair’s letter must also confirm the leave of absence as well as applicant eligibility.
· Applicants are ineligible if, at the sponsor deadline, they have combined federal and non-federal funding totaling $750,000 or more per year in direct costs. This figure refers to external funding only and not an applicant’s start-up package, other intramural support, or the Smith Award.