2022 Network Catalyst Grant Competition

Competition is now closed

2022 Catalyst Grant Competition Description

The Novo Nordisk Network for Healthy Populations is committed to supporting multi-disciplinary, collaborative teams to co-design initiatives and interventions in the Peel Region focused on reducing the burden of diabetes and chronic disease. 

The goals of this catalyst grant opportunity are to:

1. Identify, adapt, and pilot test evidence-informed solutions to address the rising burden or risk of diabetes and chronic disease that are locally relevant, feasible, and equitable for the Peel Region.
2. Spark interdisciplinary collaboration across sectors and, to foster the creation of partnerships between researchers, policymakers, knowledge users, and people with lived experience to collectively implement relevant, feasible, effective and equitable solutions.
3. Mobilize diverse methodologies, multiple disciplines and perspectives, and knowledge mobilization approaches to generate evidence that is relevant and useful for local stakeholders.
4. Demonstrate pilot data on local implementation of evidence-informed interventions to support longer-term evaluation of impact on health outcomes and scale and spread to other regions.

Catalyst Grants will be awarded to support evidence-informed programs, interventions, approaches, or evaluations that have shown promise in other contexts and align to the Network’s mission:  To reduce social inequities in risk and burden of diabetes and other chronic diseases through better care, lower risk factors and healthier living environments.

In advance of reviewing full applications, there will be a Letter of Intent (LOI) stage to vet potential applications for relevance, to foster collaboration of groups working on similar proposals and to facilitate connections to stakeholders and knowledge users within the Peel Region community.

A maximum award of $75,000 per year, up to 2 years, will be available for each successful grant.

Letter of Intent submissions are due September 1, 2022.

Specific Objectives (projects may be relevant to multiple objectives):

Catalyst grant projects must address one or more of the following Network objectives:

1. Interventions focused on the ‘micro’ health level (i.e. the individual level where people seek care), that improve the quality of diabetes care and prevention. We are seeking projects that propose evidence-informed interventions focused on patients and families, health care providers and health care administrators that will help make health services more coordinated, effective and accessible.
2. Interventions focused on the ‘meso’ health level (i.e. the community level where people spend their time), that reduce risk factors for diabetes and chronic disease. We are seeking projects focused on evidence-informed, accessible, and culturally adaptable interventions that aim to increase diabetes awareness and optimize health behaviours within specific high-risk groups, community-based organizations or local business settings.
3. Interventions focused on the ‘macro’ health level (i.e. the ‘city/policy’ level where people live and work), that create healthier environments. We are seeking projects focused on evidence-informed interventions that target areas such as municipal and regional policies and urban planning to optimize the built environment, access to healthy foods, physical activity and medicines.

Research proposals must aim to address the risk or burden of diabetes and chronic disease, and demonstrate an Implementation Science approach. Applicants will be expected to describe how they will 1) adapt an evidence-informed intervention to the local context; 2) integrate it into health care settings, community services, policies or other relevant settings, and 3) evaluate the impact on preliminary outcomes related to diabetes and chronic disease. Proposals should also include a description of how the catalyst funding will support future plans for spread and scale of the intervention and evaluation of longer-term benefits.

Intervention Requirements:

1. Evidence-informed: Components of the intervention must have been piloted or tested in another setting and found to be promising at improving service indicators, risk factors and/or outcomes for diabetes and chronic disease;
2. Equitable: Must have a population health and equity focus and aim to positively affect all or priority populations within Peel Region, improving the environmental, social, cultural, and/or structural determinants of health related to diabetes and chronic disease;
3. Implementable: Can include policy changes, introduction of a new program or practice, and/or physical changes to the environment to improve risk and/or outcomes of diabetes and chronic disease that can adapted and feasibly be implemented within the Peel Region;
4. Engaged: Must engage community stakeholders as equal partners in the research. Stakeholders should be involved in developing the research questions and methodology, as well as in data collection, the interpretation of findings and dissemination of results. A description of potential community stakeholders should be outlined in the LOI, however confirmation of community stakeholders and their role on the project will not be required until the full application submission (Feb. 15, 2023).

Submission, Review and Notifications Process:

• Completed and the CV of the nominated Principal Investigator, including current appointments, grants and relevant publications (abbreviated version, maximum five pages) will be accepted until September 1, 2022, 5:00pm EDT. Incomplete LOI applications will not be processed.
• Applications will be reviewed by the Network’s Selection Committee; ad hoc reviewers may be included in the review process as subject matter experts.
  • If a member of the Network’s Selection Committee wishes to apply, they will be excused from the adjudication process for that application and a replacement Committee member will be appointed.
• Top ranked LOI applicants will be notified by October 15, 2022, and invited to present their proposal at a Network community stakeholder pitch-event on November 21, 2022.
  • Applicants wishing to move forward in the application process must be available to present on November 21, 2022 from 12:00pm-2:00pm
• Network Community Stakeholder Pitch-Event:
  • Top ranked applicants will be invited to present their proposal to local community stakeholders and advisors on November 21, 2022. This community stakeholder pitch-event will be attended by members of the University of Toronto’s academic community, the Network’s Advisory Committee, and invited stakeholders of the larger Peel Region.
  • The pitch-event is an opportunity for stakeholders from the Peel community to learn about potential projects of interest to their community/organization, and for project teams to learn about community stakeholders. This event is also meant to connect applicants with potential stakeholders wishing to partner with them for the co-development of the final proposal, in order to support the facilitation and development of collaborative project teams.
• Applicants successful at the LOI pitch-competition stage will be notified of the Committee’s decision by December 1, 2022, and will be invited to submit full applications (application packages to be released at a later date).
• Full application submissions due: February 15, 2023, 5:00pm EDT.
• Notice of decision and funding to commence: The week of April 3, 2023.

Application Process Timeline:

Principal Investigators, Co-Investigators and Collaborators:

• Each Principal Investigator (PI) must have an appointment at University of Toronto and be eligible to hold research funding
• Project teams must demonstrate a cross disciplinary focus, and include:
  • At least one student or early career researcher (within 5 years of faculty appointment)
  • At least one community stakeholder from the Peel Region as a member of the project team (not required to be named on the LOI application, but must be determined by the time of full proposal submission)
  • At least one knowledge user from the Peel Region (not required to be named on the LOI application, but must be determined by the time of full proposal submission)
• Proposals with demonstrated multidisciplinary teams, ideally from different units or areas of study, will be rated higher
• Students, trainees and fellows without faculty appointments may be listed as co-applicants or team members but cannot apply as principal applicants.

Funding Guidelines:

• Grants will be awarded up to $75,000 per year, up to 2 years.
• More than one application can be submitted by the same applicant; however, priority will be given to funding as many distinct research groups as possible.
• This funding is not to be used as bridging or emergency funding, nor is it intended to support ongoing studies.  It may, however, support a new direction of a previously funded project, and can be combined with additional funding to support new projects.
• A condition of the grant is that Investigators commit to present findings during a Novo Nordisk Network for Healthy Populations Education Seminar and include acknowledgement of the Novo Nordisk Network for Healthy Populations in all associated presentations and publications.

Budget Considerations:

• LOI applications must include an estimated overall budget, as well as a short description of how the funds would be allocated to meet the project goals.
• Allowable expenses include trainee salaries, conferences and knowledge translation activities, equipment and open access journal fees, as well as additional administrative costs required to support the project. Investigator salaries are not considered allowable expense.

Letter of Intent Submission:

Completed LOI application forms and the Principal Applicant’s CV (maximum 5 pages, including current appointments, grants and relevant publications) must be received by September 1, 2022, 5:00pm EDT. Please submit CV’s directly to director.novonordiskhp@utoronto.ca