2026-2027 Sanofi Innovation Awards (iAwards)

Sponsored by

Funding:

$150,000 research funding including institutional direct and indirect costs for 12 months. Sanofi R&D expertise and guidance will also be provided.

Eligibility:

Academic Council Faculty

Clinician Educators

Medical Center Line Faculty

Postdocs

Applications closed

Applications closed on May 15, 2026

Approximate Offer Date:

November 9th, 2026

Sanofi is a global life sciences company committed to improving access to healthcare and supporting the people we serve throughout the continuum of care.

Sanofi iAwards initiative is a multi-institutional partnership program designed to support collaborations with academic investigators to accelerate innovative early stage, disease-relevant research towards the clinic. With this program, Sanofi aims to fund cutting-edge translational research that can contribute to our early-stage pipeline and ultimately benefit patients.

Sanofi’s main objective in creating the iAwards program is to convert successful and promising iAwards projects to sponsored research programs and subsequently create in-licensing and start-up opportunities with the potential to continuously enrich Sanofi’s early-stage portfolio.

Areas of Interest:

Overall

New and actionable knowledge about disease relevant targets, pathways and mechanisms
Early-stage compounds or biologics targeting novel disease mechanisms
New models for validating disease relevant targets
Novel therapeutic modalities

Research Topics

Immunology & Inflammation
Oncology (Adult and Childhood Cancers)
Rare Disease
Target, Disease, and Systems Biology
Neurology
Vaccines
Ophthalmology
See Call for Pre-proposals for details and additional information

Timeline:

May 8, 2026 – CE faculty PI waiver requests due (if applicable)

May 15, 2026 – Internal Pre-Proposal submission deadline to SV-IR

May 26, 2026 – Submission of completed Pre-Proposals to Sanofi by SV-IR

July 3, 2026 – Notification of Pre-proposals chosen to be pursued - Call for Full Proposals

August 28, 2026 – Institutional representative (RPM/RMG or CGO/OSR) deadline AND internal Full Proposal submission deadline to SV-IR

September 4, 2026 – Submission of Full Proposals to Sanofi by SV-IR

November 9, 2026 – Institutions informed of funding decisions

Eligibility:

Stanford faculty with PI eligibility and CE faculty (with an approved CE faculty PI waiver). CE applicants must obtain an approved CE faculty PI waiver BEFORE the pre-proposal deadline.

Instructions for CE faculty PI waiver requests: Complete the attached checklist. Submit the required, completed checklist, CE faculty PI waiver template, and attachments as a single pdf file directly to Erin Eggerman at eggerman@stanford.edu by end of day on May 8, 2026. Please do not contact your RPM/RMG or CGO/OSR regarding waivers for this program.

Requirements:

Fill out the attached pre-proposal template. Email the complete pre-proposal to SV-IR (point of contact: Nour Malek at nrmalek@stanford.edu) by May 15, 2026. The team shall review the submission with the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) and then formally submit the pre-proposals through the Sanofi portal on behalf of Stanford.

There should be NO confidential information disclosed in the pre-proposals.

Institutional representative: you do not need to submit your Pre-Proposal through RMG or OSR for institutional approval; you should submit your pre-proposal directly to Nour Malek per the instructions above. If invited to submit a full proposal, please initiate your Proposal Intake Form (PIF) at your earliest convenience. Final proposal submission will require institutional approval prior to submission. Any CE faculty PI waiver requests should be submitted directly to Erin Eggerman per the instructions above.

Amount

$150000

How can the funds be used?

The funds can be used for FTE, supplies, equipment, data, services, etc.

Additional resources: