The TMA 2024-2025 Innovation Grants Program

This program is open to those at Stanford University only. 

The Stanford Medicine Teaching and Mentoring Academy (TMA) promotes excellence in teaching and mentoring by developing, supporting, and recognizing dedicated educators to ensure world-class training for the next generation of physicians, researchers, and educators. 

The Academy is pleased to announce grants—pending budget availability—to fund projects aimed at innovation and scholarship in teaching, learning, and mentoring at Stanford Medicine. Proposals will be reviewed for the importance of the problem, academic rigor, well developed aims, activities, research/evaluation design, timeline for implementation, dissemination plan, and budget.

The Academy encourages education innovation and research projects that will have a lasting impact on medical and biosciences education. Education innovation could be related to—but is not limited to—simulation models, service learning, case-based or team-based learning, novel instructional delivery approaches, new curricular design and development, and innovative assessment methods. Education research projects should demonstrate scientific rigor in conception, design, and evaluation.

The Academy further prioritizes projects that:

• Foster collaboration among departments, disciplines, professions, and/or community partners.
• Address inclusive learning settings, mitigating bias, increasing access for underrepresented minority group members, or otherwise confronting racial inequities in medical and biosciences education.
• Show consideration of impact and sustainability, meaning that the project will live beyond the grant funding period.

Applicants will be asked to indicate for which of the following two types of grants they are applying.

I. Innovation Grants
Funded projects seek to find a new, more effective way to carry out activities directly related to teaching and/or mentoring using a rigorous scientific approach. These projects should illustrate why an identified problem is significant and demonstrate awareness of other efforts in the field to address this problem. Projects might propose and evaluate a new approach to curriculum design, pedagogy, mentoring, feedback delivery, or assessment, as a few examples. Projects might also aim to study the outcomes of previously implemented educational innovations or to support scaling of a pilot study. Prior-year grantees are encouraged to apply for an Innovation Grant to extend or build upon insights and findings.

Proposals should state clear aims and activities and address how they will complete the funded portion of the work in the limited (10-month) timeframe of the grant funding period. The proposal should demonstrate rigorous design, methods, evaluation plan, timeline, and budget. 

Please note that the IRB process takes time and, if not already completed, must be considered in this timeframe.

II. Emerging Scholars Grants
The purpose of the Emerging Scholars Grant is to support early career professionals interested in pursuing medical or biosciences education initiatives. To this end, a portion of the grant funding will be set aside for individuals who have not received a grant as a PI or have less than $10,000.00 in total grant funding at the time of submission. 

Prior to submitting an application, emerging scholars are required to attend or watch a recording of the TMA’s Grant Writing Workshop. During the grant funding period, emerging scholars benefit from being part of a cohort that participates in a series of workshops providing the support needed to be successful.

• Request for proposals released: March 8, 2024
• Grant writing workshop: March 27, 2024
• Online application deadline: June 14, 2024 at 11:59 pm via the online proposal available here. Download a PDF version  of the online application here.
• Applicants notified of decisions: September, 2024
• Funds for awarded grants available: October 1, 2024
• Funds must be expended by: July 30, 2025

Each proposal is reviewed by three members of the TMA Innovation Grants review committee. Final funding decisions are made by consensus of the entire review committee. The committee is comprised of previous Innovation Grants awardees and other faculty from across the school with expertise in MedEd scholarship. Because this is the first year in which the entire committee reviews every proposal, individuals applying for grant funds in the current cycle are not allowed to participate as grant reviewers. The rubric used by reviewers is available here.

Stanford faculty (with UTL, MCL, NTLR, CE appts.), medical fellows, residents, postdoctoral scholars, medical students, graduate students, instructors, clinical instructors, academic staff-research (i.e., basic scientists, senior research associates), and other School of Medicine staff.

Note:

1. Non-faculty applications must include a faculty letter of support.
2. For studies involving research on medical students or the required curriculum, researchers must also provide documentation that the study has been reviewed and approved as outlined in the medical education research policy, available here.

Applicants can apply for up to $20,000. Please refer to the budget limitations section below for more information. All grant funds must be expended by July 30, 2025.

All grant proposals are due by 11:59pm on June 14, 2024.
Applications must answer the following quetions:

1. Provide the title of your project.
2. Define the problem or gap your project will address. What theories or solutions have been developed in relation to this problem? What solutions have been implemented and how successful were they? Why is this project needed and how does it go beyond what has already been done? If pilot data is available, findings should be described in this section. (references can be included at the end of the application)
3. Describe your specific aims. What are the goals of this project? Connect the objectives back to the problem identified previously in this application such that it is clear how the project will contribute to improving medical or biosciences education at Stanford or beyond.
4. Describe the activities you will undertake during this project. Detail the approach you will use to achieve your project goals. Clearly outline the steps you have planned to achieve each of your aims. If your project aims to study the outcomes of previously implemented educational innovations, include your research methodology in this section.
5. Describe your anticipated work products. Describe what you will have created, developed, or enhanced at the end of the grant period.
6. Describe your evaluation plan. Describe how you will assess whether your project met the aims described previously in the application. What measures will you track to determine if your project was successful? How will you gather and analyze data to show whether the project was successful?
7. Create a timeline for implementation. Be specific about which activities described in your application you will have achieved by when. If your study requires IRB approval, include how it fits into your timeline or if you have already begun the process.The timeline should be realistic and fall within the funding period (October 1, 2024 – July 30, 2025). This is an unusually short (10-month) funding period; however, due to the structure of the TMA budget, extensions cannot be awarded for funding beyond the July 2025 deadline.
8. Describe your plan for dissemination. How do you plan to share the results of this project with the Stanford community and/or in the field? The TMA provides platforms for sharing grants in progress with the Stanford community including coverage in the TMA newsletter, the opportunity to lead a lunchtime seminar, or presenting at our annual Education Day conference.
9. If applicable, describe how your project meets the TMA priorities of fostering sustainability, collaborations, and inclusive learning.
10. Enter your budget items. Use the text boxes below to enter a compensation or non-compensation line item with justification. For each line item, enter the dollar amount requested in the box to the right (see sample entries below). The total amount requested should auto-calculate below the line. Total budget requests are not to exceed $20,000.

Compensation Line Item 1
4 clinical days (32 hours) at $100/hour: supports PI’s time to develop survey instrument and design focus groups - $3,200

Non-compensation Line Item 1
1 stipend x $1200 each: stipend for 80 hours of student assistant time to assist with focus groups - $1,200

Non-compensation Line Item 2
10 nominal gifts x $10 each: gifts to incentivize focus group participation - $100

Total = $4,500

• Requests for salary support should include documentation of expected time and hourly rate. In this grant cycle, there are no limits to the percent of the budget request that can be allocated to compensation versus non-compensation; however, projects allocating a significant portion of the budget to salary support must clearly explain how the individual’s salary does not already support grant-related duties.
• Requests for funds to pay EdTech should include confirmation that the PI has already met with EdTech and has a timeline and quote for the project from their office that informs the project timeline and budget.
• Requests for travel funds should not make up most of the budget request, and the need for travel should be clearly justified. Funds for travel are not to exceed $2,500.
• Requests for equipment (laptops, cameras) must be justified and, although allowable, are generally discouraged.
• Requests for gift cards must be justified and should not exceed 5% of the total budget request. Gift cards can be given to students and/or faculty as incentives for interviews, surveys, and/or focus groups. Individual gift card amounts may not exceed $30 each. Please communicate to all recipients that all gift cards are taxable regardless of dollar value (students need to self-report it). Per University policy, gift cards cannot be used as incentives for residents. Nominal gifts of up to $50 value (including shipping and taxes) can be an alternative incentive for residents. Per University policy, nominal gifts have a limit of $100 per individual per calendar year, and departments are responsible for tracking.
• Requests for honoraria should include the dates of service and why the honorarium is being requested. Honoraria are not given until after the date of service has ended. Please keep this in mind when requesting because honoraria must be given before July 30, 2025. The approval process for faculty honoraria can take at least 4 weeks and must be approved before service begins. Faculty honoraria forms will be provided by Claire Medina.

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  Can you provide examples of successful projects? Funded projects from the past grant cycles can be viewed from this page. See the right navigation pane above. 
• Do I need to submit a PI waiver with my proposal? No. PI waivers are not required for internal Stanford funding. 
  
• Are staff eligible to apply? Yes, staff are eligible to apply provided they include a letter of support from a faculty member in their application. Non-faculty roles that are considered staff include Lecturers, Instructors, Academic Staff Research (basic scientists, senior research associates), and other School of Medicine staff.
• Can I use the grant award to fund travel related to my grant project? Yes; please note that requests for travel funds should not make up the majority of the budget request and the need for travel must be clearly justified in relation to the project's intended outcomes.
  
• Can I use the grant award to purchase a laptop or other equipment needed to make my educational product? Requests for funds to purchase equipment are allowable, but must be rigorously justified and are generally discouraged. 
  
• Can I use the grant award solely for salary? Yes, there are no restrictions on how much of your grant request may go to cover salary. 
  
• Can I use the grant award to make videos?  Yes. We recommend you consult with EdTech as you write your budget request to get a reasonable idea of what video production might cost.
• Can the educational products be open source (eg. videos, on-line content, open availabilty)? Yes 
• Can I use the grant award to pay faculty time for creating videos? Yes   
• The funding period is very short--less than one year. If I am awarded a grant, can I get a no-cost extension to continue my project beyond next July? No. Due to the structure of our TMA budget, we lose all unspent funds at the end of the fiscal year, and therefore cannot continue to fund your project beyond that period. Prior-year grantees are encouraged to apply for an Innovation Grant to extend or build upon insights and findings.
  
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Contact Claire Medina (cemedina@stanford.edu) with questions.