Community-Academic Partnership Planning Grant Request for Application (RFA)

PURPOSE

The overarching goal of the ACHIEVE GreatER (Addressing Cardiometabolic Health Inequities by Early PreVEntion in the Great LakEs Region) Center is to understand whether addressing social determinants of health, in addition to traditional therapeutic approaches, enhances treatment outcomes, improves cardiovascular health equity, and reduces lifespan risks for cardiovascular disease among Black adults. The aims of the Center’s Community Engagement Core (CEC) are to provide training and infrastructure to establish community-academic partnerships and ensure meaningful community engagement across the continuum of cardiovascular health equity research. Community-academic partnership during grant application development is critical to achieving this outcome and ensures funded research is relevant to the community.

To promote these aims, the CEC and ACHIEVE GreatER Center will support community-academic partnerships to develop a grant application that will be submitted for extramural funding (e.g., NIH, CDC, PCORI, HRSA) to support innovative and community-relevant research to eliminate cardiovascular health disparities. This mechanism will also provide mentorship in the use of a Community-Academic Partnership Grant Writing Toolkit to develop an application that addresses research priorities for eliminating cardiovascular health disparities as identified by our Cardiovascular Health Equity Action Council (see below). Partnerships can request up to $10,000 to complete the toolkit and grant application development over a one-year period. The toolkit was created in partnership with the CHEAC and includes didactic presentations and experiential learning exercises to facilitate community engaged research capacity building and completion of common sections of research grants (e.g., research aims/questions/hypothesis, research design, and budget). Funded applicants, including community partners, will attend regular meetings with a CEC mentor and complete toolkit modules.

The academic partner will have primary responsibility for post-award management of finances.

Cardiovascular Health Equity Action Council Research Priorities:

All priorities are specific to urban, Black Populations in Detroit, MI and/or Cleveland, OH.

   1. Social determinants of cardiovascular health. 
   2. Environmental determinants (e.g., build environment and toxins from pollution and 
        blight) and solutions for improving cardiovascular health. 
   3. Strategies for disseminating education about hypertension and treatment options. 
   4. Strategies to improve healthy food access and skills (e.g., meal planning and budgeting) 
        to improve diet quality. 
   5. Interventions to provide support to individuals with and caring for those with 
       hypertension and cardiovascular disease. 
   6. Effective approaches to increasing physical activity to prevent and treat hypertension. 

KEY DATES

Letter of Intent Due Date: 09/27/24

Invitation to submit full proposals: 10/4/24

Application Due Date: 11/4/24

Review Response Date: 12/13/24

Earliest Start Date: 01/06/25

ELIGIBILITY

       • Applicant partnerships should include at least one community partner from the metro 
          Detroit, Michigan or Cleveland, Ohio area (s) and one academic researcher (any level) 
          from Wayne State University, Henry Ford Health System, or Case Western Reserve 
          University/University Hospitals. Trainees (postdoctoral PhD or MD fellows) are eligible to 
          apply with a faculty mentor. 
      • Applicants do not need to have prior experience with community engaged research. 
      • Applicant partnerships may submit only one proposal per RFA. 
      • Applicants may not be currently receiving funding through the center’s pilot award 
          program  
      • Applicants may not be members of the P50 grant 
      • Applicant partnerships that include members in the underrepresented minority (URM) 
        group as defined by the NIH (https://diversity.nih.gov/about-us/population-underrepresented) are strongly encouraged to apply.

REQUIRED LETTER OF INTENT (LOI) COMPONENTS 
Provide a one-page LOI in 11-point Arial font with narrow margins that is developed by the 
partnerships and includes the following: 
   1. Name, contact information, and affiliation of the applicants 
   2. Names and affiliations of any other key personnel 
   3. Project title 
   4. Brief description of proposed project including 
      a. What CHEAC priority will the partnership address? 
      b. What solution is the partnership proposing (e.g., the research focus) to address 
this priority? 
      c. How will research addressing this priority impact cardiovascular health equity 
and particularly in Detroit or Cleveland? 
   5. Description of the partnership including: 
      a. Who are each of the partners? 
      b. Why is this partnership ideal for completing the proposed work? 
   6. Proposed funding mechanism that the partnership will submit the grant application to. 
   7. Amount of requested funding (see information about Budget guidelines)

REQUIRED APPLICATION COMPONENTS 
If invited to submit a full proposal application, the following components should make up the 
11-point Arial font submission with narrow margins. Applications that do not comply with 
these instructions may be delayed or not accepted for review. 
        1. A cover page (1 page maximum) containing the following: 
               a. Name, contact information and affiliation for each applicant 
               b. Project title 
        2. Proposal 
            a. Review of the pertinent literature to support: 
                 i. Statement of the problem (e.g., the CHEAC priority will the research address) 
                 ii.  Proposed solution (e.g., research focus) to address the priority 
                 iii. Relevance of the project to the Detroit and/or Cleveland communities 
                 iv. Innovation of the project and how it will advance the field of research to improve cardiovascular health equity 
            b. Community-Academic partnership plan: 
                 i. Describe each of the partners (community and academic). 
                 ii. What unique contributions/assets does each partner make or bring to the proposed work? 
                iii. What are the anticipated roles and responsibilities for each partner in completing the toolkit? (e.g., how will the                              partnership work together to develop and write the grant outside of toolkit meetings with CEC faculty?) 
                iv. Why is this partnership ideal for completing the proposed work? 
                 v. How will writing a grant strengthen the partnership? 
                 vi. Brief description of past partnership work (does not need to be specific to writing a research grant application). 
           c. Grant application submission plan 
                  i. What funding mechanisms will the application be submitted to? 
                 ii. What will each of the partners do to complete the submission process? 
           d. Partnership sustainability plan (e.g., how will the partnership be sustained through the grant application phase and beyond?)                  
        3. Budget and Budget Justification 
           a. Grants are for 1 year. Applicants may request up to $10,000. 
           b. Partnerships must submit an itemized budget with justification of costs as an appendix to the application. 
           c. Funding should be split as equitably as possible between all stakeholders in the partnership.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE AND REVIEW PROCESS 
        • LOIs must be submitted in an electronic format via email to the CEC project manager, 
           Brandon Crittenden at brandon.crittenden@wayne.edu 
        • LOIs must be received by the due date listed in “Key Dates” to be considered for funding. 
        • LOIS will be reviewed by members of the CEC and the CHEAC. Applicants with 
          meritorious LOIs will be invited to submit a full application. 
        • Full applications of selected LOIs must be submitted in electronic format via email to the 
         CEC project manager, Brandon Crittenden (brandon.crittenden@wayne.edu) 
        • Full proposals must be received by the due date listed in “Key Dates” to be considered 
          for funding.

FUNDING IS APPROVED FOR: 
        • Investigator and other faculty/staff salaries 
        • Community partnership activities 
        • Supplies/expenses 
        • Travel support (e.g., for toolkit meetings if held in person)

FUNDING IS NOT APPROVED FOR: 
       • Purchasing equipment including computers 
       • Institutional indirect costs 

FINAL REPORT  
        • A final report must be submitted within 60 days of completing the award that includes: 
              o The grant application and timeline/plan for submission 
              o Reflection on completing the toolkit (e.g., lessons learned, obstacles and how 
                  they were addressed) 
              o Partnership sustainability plan 
              o Budget report

QUESTIONS 

Submissions contact:  
Brandon Crittenden (brandon.crittenden@wayne.edu) 

General/Community Engagement Core Contact: 
Elizabeth Towner, PhD (ekuhl@med.wayne.edu)