Applicant Eligibility

The Applicant must:-

• • Be a KCA member
  • Work at a KCA partner institution (Children’s Cancer Institute, Children’s Medical Research Institute or Sydney Children’s Hospital Network) or work within the KCA network at UNSW Sydney or the University of Sydney.
  • Be endorsed by a KCA executive member.
  • Be a post-doctoral researcher. Preference will be given to early (7 years or less post-doctoral experience) to mid-career (12 years or less post-doctoral experience) researchers. Career interruptions will be taken into consideration.
  • Not be in current receipt of KCA project funding (scholarships and travel grants are not considered project funding)
  • An Australian citizen, or;
    • Permanent resident currently residing in Australia, or;
    • Temporary resident holding visas currently working at a New South Wales institution.

Please contact the KCA Program Manager if in doubt about eligibility.

Timeline

• First call for applications: Third Monday in September
• Closing date for applications: Third Friday in October. Please check closing date given at time of calling for applications.
• Successful short-listed applications announced mid-November
• Successful final application/s announced mid-December
• Grants awarded for work to commence in January next year.

Application guidelines

• Projects must be new research, at an exceptional level, in the field of translational child cancer research.
• We encourage applications from preclinical investigators who can define a path and feasible timeline for their research to be translated into clinical practice. This will require you to approach clinical researchers to assist you to define translational goals and timeframes for your project. Preclinical projects with active clinical collaborators and feasible timeframes for clinical translation have an improved chance for shortlisting.
• The application will be a four (4) page project description which will include the following:-
  • title, names of investigators and their primary institutions
  • background, aims, hypotheses, methods
  • population to be studied, research plan, timeline, and measurable outcomes
  • details of staff to be employed
  • evidence of leadership and active involvement across both the Randwick and Westmead campuses, and potentially Newcastle
  • evidence that the funding will not be used to simply provide a clinical service
  • The document is to be formatted in Word using Times New Roman, 12 pt, single spaced, with 1 cm margins. References are not required.
• The project description should be saved as a PDF document using the following naming convention:-

KCA_NEW PROJECT GRANT_YYYY_SURNAME OF CI_INITIAL OF CI

EG.        KCA_NEW PROJECT GRANT_2019_SMITH_J

• The PDF file will be forwarded to the judges and external reviewers. To keep the file size at a minimum, please do not scan your document to create a PDF file.
• Applications are to be emailed to admin@kca.org.au with the subject heading “NEW PROJECT FUNDING 2019” with the PDF file attached.
• Please note: KCA may reject applications that do not meet the formatting and submission requirements.
• Incomplete applications will NOT be accepted.

Judging process

• KCA Administration and the KCA Program Manager will review applications for completeness and eligibility
• Applications will be allocated to eight members of the KCA executive management group (EMG) for judging
• Conflicts of interest will be considered whereby judges will be excluded from judging an application if a conflict exists
• Applications will be judged according to 5 categories, each of equal value:
  • Scientific quality of research (feasibility & experimental design)
  • Scientific innovation
  • Human health impact
  • Translational potential
  • Will this work in future, be published in a high impact journal and/or lead to the awarding of NHMRC funding?
• The top three applications will be sent to interstate and/or international external reviewers for comment
• A rebuttal may be required from the applicant if required or advised by the external reviewers
• The top three applications are then re-ranked by the EMG after external review and rebuttal are taken into account.
• The top two project grants will then be awarded $100,000 per annum for 2 years.
• The submission of an application does not confer any entitlement upon the applicant.
• The judges’ decision is final. KCA will not enter in to any correspondence over final application rankings.