2023 Spectrum Community Engagement Pilot Grants

Spectrum CE Pilot Grant Program Overview

Spectrum offers pilot grants for accelerating clinical and translational research in biomedical and health-related areas. The Spectrum Pilot Program has two major goals:

• to stimulate innovative clinical and translational research and
• to encourage collaborative, transdisciplinary work.

The primary expectation is that these early-stage translational projects will lead to additional research, external support, information dissemination, and most importantly, will develop into longer-term, comprehensive projects. We encourage transdisciplinary collaborations, but this is not a requirement for funding.
 

School of Medicine Office of Community Engagement (OCE)

The School of Medicine Office of Community Engagement (OCE) manages the Spectrum Community Engagement Pilot Grants Program and is soliciting applications in collaboration with the Health Equity Action Leadership (HEAL) Network, part of Office of Faculty Development and Diversity (OFDD). The intent of this pilot award program is to support:

• Development of new community-engaged research partnerships with shared leadership responsibilities by Stanford researchers and community partners. 
• Generation of pilot data for community-engaged research studies that will lead to external funding. 
• Implementation and evaluation of innovative community engagement methods.

The projects must have a community engagement component that highlights ways to incorporate community members’ input in the design and implementation of the proposed project. Research teams new to community-engaged research are encouraged to apply. Please note, a community partner with equal decision-making authority is required to be part of proposals. 

Proposals should specifically address any or all of the following, as much as feasible: 

1. Health equity and working with under-resourced communities and communities of color, broadly defined. 
2. Demonstrate knowledge of community-engaged research (CEnR) and/or community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles. 
3. How the research team plans to work with and incorporate input from community partners throughout the study design and implementation processes. 
4. How the proposed project is responsive to community partners’ needs.
5. How the research team will allocate resources to support community partners’ involvement in the study process.
6. How research teams plan to resolve conflicts that arise during the project period.

Recommended Reading on Community-Engaged Research Technical Assistance from the Office of Community Engagement

The Office of Community Engagement provides leadership, resources, and valuable guidance for our partners, Stanford researchers, and Stanford Centers and departments through short- and long-term technical assistance and activities throughout the year. Community Engagement Seed Grantees are offered one year of free, in-depth, or long-term technical assistance to spur growth for projects to generate future funding and research.

• Wallerstein, N., Duran, B., Oetzel, J., & Minkler, M. (2018). Community-Based Participatory Research for Health: Advancing Social and Health Equity (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Jossey-Bass.
• Grumbach, K., Vargas, R., Fleisher, P., Aragón, T., Chung, L., Chawla, C., et al. (2017). Achieving Health Equity Through Community Engagement in Translating Evidence to Policy: The San Francisco Health Improvement Partnership, 2010-2016. UCSF. Report #: ARTN E27. http://dx.doi.org/10.5888/pcd14.160469
• Ortiz, K., Shea, J., Nash, L., Oetzel, J., Garoutte, J., Sanchez-Youngman, S., & Wallerstein, N. (2020). Partnerships, processes, and outcomes: A health equity-focused scoping meta-review of community-engaged scholarship. Annual Review of Public Health, 41, 177-199.
   

Recently Awarded Projects

• Project title: Supporting Psychosocial Service Delivery of Resettlement Agencies For Afghan Refugees: A Partnership with Tiyya Foundation (PI: Rania Awaad, MD, and Zainab Hosseini, EdM, MSW)
  Community Partner: Tiyya Foundation
  Summary: The general goal of this research project is to support the Tiyya Foundation’s capacity to provide culturally relevant psychosocial support services for recent Afghan refugees to the US. Both Tiyya and the Muslim Mental Health and Islamic Psychology (MMHIP) lab are dedicated to engaging in an equitable and culturally humble investigative approach that prioritizes recognizing the wisdom that refugees hold in guiding programming that can most suitably meet their needs. Informed by Tiyya’s priorities, we will carry out a mixed-methods investigation to explore the rates of mental health challenges, salient cultural idioms of distress, common types of coping mechanisms, as well as priorities for healing among Afghan refugees who have been resettled in the US in the past year. Results of these explorations will inform the co-creation of socioculturally relevant and trauma-informed trainings for the Tiyya Foundation service-providers to Afghan refugees.
   
• Project title: En nuestra voz: Immigrant youth perspectives regarding their own assets and needs for success (PI: Ryan Matlow, PhD, and Nancy Ewen Wang, MD)
  Community Partner: Ayudando Latinos A Soñar (ALAS)
  Summary: The current project seeks to capture immigrant youth and family perspectives on community and cultural assets and needs, as they relate to processes of integration into U.S. communities. Immigrant and mixed-status children and families are at heightened risk for exposure to adversity, trauma, and traumatic stress, which is directly related to their uncertain status. Further, they often experience barriers in accessing traditional service systems and resources, further elevating psychological and health risk. However, they also possess notable community and cultural assets, strengths, and resiliency. These protective factors can be leveraged by community programs that focus on cultural identity and cultural arts, thereby providing a ‘point of entry’ to address health, mental health, legal, and educational needs. In the current academic-community partnership, we will seek to evaluate the impact of cultural arts programs (as offered by the community partner, Ayudando Latinos a Soñar) on immigrant youth well-being, sense of belonging, and access to care. We will use community-based participatory research approaches to elicit immigrant youth and family voice on community assets and needs, as well as the outcomes and impacts of cultural arts programming.
   
• Project title: Providing Tools to Engage Employers in Promoting Health, Wellbeing, and Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) for All in Silicon Valley (PI: Sara Singer, MBA, PhD)
  Community Partner: Joint Venture Silicon Valley
  Summary: Silicon Valley suffers from large, persistent, and increasing disparities in health and wealth. Employers are powerful actors in shaping conditions that affect disparities yet could do more to close the racial health and wealth divide in Silicon Valley. Joint Venture Silicon Valley’s (JVSV’s) Lighthouse Building Back Better team and Stanford Medicine Primary Care and Population Health’s Health Leadership, Organization, and Innovation Labs propose to launch a new community-engaged research partnership, which recognizes the importance of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI) for achieving health, health equity, and wellbeing; and seeks to influence employers’ role in impacting JEDI among workers and families. We aim to: (1) to develop and deploy an Employer Landscape, comparing employers on JEDI-related measures based on publicly available data, to promote engagement in developing the Silicon Valley JEDI Scorecard; and (2) to conduct an Employee Wellbeing Survey of employees in one Silicon Valley employer; examine relationships between race/ethnicity, perceived JEDI, and employee member wellbeing; and use findings to motivate JVSV/Lighthouse initiatives promoting measurement, benchmarking, and policy and organizational change. Results of the Employer Landscape and Employee Wellbeing Survey will inform the Silicon Valley JEDI Scorecard, fuel conversations at the JEDI Council, and advocate for community benefit agreements between employers and the communities they work in and serve. We anticipate that this pilot project will set the stage for future research and collaboration between Stanford, JVSV, other community nonprofits, and Silicon Valley employers.
   

Amount and Period of Funding:

Total funding available: $75,000 for an anticipated total of 2-3 awardees. Typical grants will range between $15,000 and $30,000 for one year and must be completed in that timeframe. All unexpended funds will be forfeited if not spent within the 12-month award period. The Office of Community Engagement encourages investigators to consider submitting requests less than the $30,000 maximum, as this may increase the probability of being funded and will enable the award of more grants in this cycle. 
 

Important dates:

• Optional Webinar for Interested Applicants: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 12 noon (Pacific Time). Registration form.
  • Email Wei-ting Chen, PhD, MA, Executive Director, Office of Community Engagement, if you have questions about the webinar.
• Deadline for Proposal Submissions: Tuesday, February 28, 2023 at 11:59 PM (Pacific Time)
• Selection of Finalists: March 31
• Award Notification: April 7
• Funding Cycle: July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024 (no cost extensions are not allowed)

Institutional representatives:

Not applicable. Because this is an internal Stanford funding opportunity, you do not have to submit your applications through your RPM in RMG or your CGO in OSR for their approval. 
 

Award Process and Timeline: 

The award process is as follows: 

• Submit Full Proposal. Final proposal narrative should be no longer than 3-pages (excluding the cover sheet, budget documents, and biosketches) and are due on February 28, 2023 by 11:59 PM (Pacific Time).
• Awardees will be notified. Awardees will be notified by April 7. Grants will be formally awarded (July 1, 2023). 
• Presentation of Research Findings: Awardees will be required to present their research findings through a poster at the annual Stanford University Community Health Symposium. 

Although a proposal may span several areas, projects will be awarded only one Spectrum Pilot Grant per annual grant cycle. 
 

Application Instructions

Application Instructions

Format

• Page specifications
  • 8.5 x 11” page size
  • At least 0.5” margins on all sides
  • At least 11-point font size
• Save your documents as PDFs (or Excel for the budget, Word for the budget justification) and upload to the SeedFunding application (online submission)

Applications Must Include the Following Information

• A cover sheet (1-page limit; upload as a single PDF) that includes:
  • Title of proposal
  • PI name title, email and department
  • Mentor name (if applicable)
  • Co-investigator names, departments, and emails – a representative of a community organization is required to be a full and equitable collaborator in the proposal (i.e., comparable to a community PI) 
  • Amount of funding requested
     
• Background, Specific Aims, and Methodology (3-page limit, Standard NIH format; upload as a single PDF).
  • Please submit background/ statement of need, specific aims, and methodology addressing any or all of the following, as much as feasible:
    • Health equity and working with under-resourced communities and communities of color, broadly defined.
    • Demonstrate knowledge of community-engaged research (CEnR) and/or community-based participatory research (CBPR) principles. 
    • How the research team plans to work with and incorporate input from community partners throughout the study design and implementation processes. 
    • How the research team plans to engage community partners.
    • How the proposed project is responsive to community partners’ needs.
    • How research teams will resolve conflicts that arise during the project period.
       
  • Also address or include the following:
    • Approvals for animals and human subjects should be addressed ahead of the grant-funding period, include protocol numbers or letter of exemption. Approvals are strictly required for funding dispersal and are generally not a valid rationale for no-cost extension requests.
    • ​If applicable, include approval numbers for animals and human subjects.
      • If not yet approved, reference the eProtocol submission status.
      • Please note that the eProtocol application must include Spectrum Pilot Grant under "Other Funding" of the funding section.
      • For more information on IRB or APLAC protocol submission, please visit http://humansubjects.stanford.edu or https://researchcompliance.stanford.edu/panels/aplac.
    • For human subjects research, project investigators and their research staff must complete the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) training online (Group 7: IRB BioMed/GCP Research for All Medical Investigators and Staff).
       
• NIH Biosketches: (not part of 3-page limit; upload as a single PDF)
  • Required for the PI, Co-PI(s), Co-I(s), and other senior/key personnel.
    • Senior/key personnel are defined as all individuals who contribute in a substantive, meaningful way to the scientific development or execution of the project.
  • For NIH biosketch template and instructions, refer to link here: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/forms/biosketch.htm.
  • Community partner representatives do not need to submit NIH Biosketches, instead, please submit most recent resume or CV.
     
• Budget (not part of 3-page limit; upload as an Excel file)
  • Use provided budget template here.
  • Allowable expenditures include: investigator’s salary, research personnel salaries, travel (if project-related) and project supplies.
    • Budget should include some measurable effort for Principal Investigators (PIs), Co-PIs, and other personnel performing work (associate director and program manager can advise, if needed).​
  • Unallowable expenditures include: capital equipment costing more than $5,000, intellectual property services, and food.
  • Salaries are capped at the NIH salary cap of $192,300.
  • Do not include indirect cost expenses.
     
• Budget Justification (not part of 3-page limit; upload as a Word file)
  • Use provided justification template here.
  • Your budget justification should provide an explanation of factors used to determine costs on each budget line item in your proposal.
     
• Letter of Support (not part of 3-page limit; upload as a single PDF)
  • Two letters of support are required from a:
    1. Faculty mentor or department chair.
    2. Community collaborator. The letter should clearly outline how the proposed project would benefit the community, how community input will be incorporated into the design and implementation of the study, and why additional support is needed for the development of a research partnership.
        

Note:

• Preference would be given to projects that reflect equitable sharing of budget resources between academic and community partner(s).
• Figures and tables included within the body of proposal will count towards the 3-page limit.
• References may be included and are not part of the page limit.
• Applications that do not comply with the requirements will not be considered for review.
• Funding will not be dispersed without clearance of any applicable APLAC, IRB or IRB exemption requirements. It is highly preferable that clearance is achieved prior to finalist stage, or by start of grant period on July 1, 2023 at the latest.
• If the research does not involve animals or human subjects, award recipients must provide confirmation.
   

Questions:

For questions regarding the scope of the proposal, criteria for awards, or the review process, contact: Wei-ting Chen, PhD, MA, Executive Director, Office of Community Engagement.
 

To apply for a Spectrum Community Engagement Pilot Grant, please complete and submit this online application. If you have any questions while completing the online application, please contact Ellen Orasa at eorasa@stanford.edu.