Sponsor Deadline for Vision Statements (required): March 8, 2023

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission

Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): September 2023

Award Information: Simons Collaborations will be funded for 10 years (with a review at year 5). The total budget for the new Neuroscience Collaborations will be $25 million per year. The Foundation anticipates identifying up to three collaborations, with the funding level of each collaboration determined by the proposed scope and aims of the project. As a guideline, budgets of between $5–12 million per year, inclusive of 20 percent indirect costs, are encouraged.

The Simons Foundation seeks vision statements to identify new, emerging breakthrough areas of neuroscience that are poised for high-impact funding. The Foundation is interested in bold and cutting edge, idea-generating research that focuses on basic principles of brain function and may be overlooked or too risky for other funding organizations. It will prioritize cross-disciplinary collaborations that integrate many levels of analysis, methodologies, ways of thinking, and scientific communities. Conversations within and across fields are encouraged, as well as bringing together diverse groups of researchers to investigate important questions about the basic principles of brain function. Investigators in a Simons Collaboration are expected to openly share data, code, analysis pipelines, protocols and reagents. Proposals should include junior investigators and investigators from a diversity of academic disciplines, genders, races and ethnicities. There are no citizenship or country requirements.

Vision statements will be reviewed by the Simons Foundation with input from outside reviewers. 10–20 submissions will be invited to submit a 20-page full proposal including a finalized list of investigators and a detailed budget. Full proposals will be reviewed, and 3–5 submissions will be invited to the Simons Foundation for workshops with all investigators involved in the proposed collaboration. 

The submission portal will open on January 11, 2023. There will be an informational webinar on December 12, 2022, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. ET. Click here to join.

Sponsor Deadline for First-Stage Applications: February 16, 2023

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: February 9, 2023

Award Information: Fellows will receive up to two years of postdoctoral support with an annual salary of $70,000, fringe benefits, and an annual resource and professional development allowance of $10,000, and indirect costs (limited to 20 percent of modified total direct costs), followed by a commitment of $600,000 over three years, including indirect costs (limited to 20 percent of modified total direct costs), activated upon assumption of a tenure-track research professorship.

The Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) is dedicated to supporting advances in systems and computational neuroscience with the goal of expanding our understanding of the brain’s internal states. The Transition to Independence (TTI) Award aims to facilitate the transition of outstanding systems and computational neuroscientists from historically underrepresented backgrounds to research independence. Through this effort, the Foundation seeks to fund scientists doing work consistent with SCGB’s scientific mission, ideally investigating large-scale circuits at single-cell resolution to understand neural dynamics and coding. This request for applications (RFA) is aimed at Ph.D. and M.D.-holding scientists who are currently in training positions but intend to seek tenure-track research faculty positions during the upcoming academic job cycle. The program’s selection process is designed to enhance the TTI fellows’ job prospects by providing a letter that specifies SCGB’s financial commitment to the research project once the TTI fellow has secured a suitable faculty position. Importantly, this fellowship also includes postdoctoral fellowship support in order to facilitate professional development and offer support during the job search process. Applicants are not eligible if they are recipients of other career development awards with similar budgetary scopes as the SCGB TTI Award. This program has no citizenship requirements.

The Simons Foundation will be holding an informational webinar for the Transition to Independence RFA featuring SCGB scientific staff on December 8, 2022 at 12:00 p.m. EST. Click here to register.

Sponsor Deadline for Pre-Submission Inquiries (required): January 19, 2023

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: January 26, 2023

Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): February 2, 2023

Award Information: Funding levels will be determined by budget request and justification. Awards will be for two years.

The Simons Collaboration on the Global Brain (SCGB) is accepting applications for funding of courses or conferences relevant to the SCGB mission. Courses and conferences that focus on the fields of systems and computational neuroscience are encouraged to apply. More information will be available when the RFA opens on December 12.

Those interested will be required to submit a pre-submission inquiry via a Google form link provided on the RFA webpage.