Apply Now: Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award RFA

Today, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) invites letters of intent from early career academic investigators, especially those who are new to the field of neurodegeneration, for the Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award. Awards are $1.2M in total costs over 4 years, and will provide mentored support for early career investigators to conduct bold, innovative, and rigorous research in the basic science underlying neurodegenerative disease and fundamental neuroscience. Early career investigators will also benefit from the CZI Neurodegeneration Challenge Network (NDCN). Learn about our Cycle 1 grantees and apply now. We are accepting letters of intent until 5 p.m. Pacific Time on April 20, 2023.

The CZI NDCN was established in 2018 with the vision that solving neurodegenerative diseases requires new ideas and people exploring bold and innovative interdisciplinary research that looks across a broad range of diseases. Through this vision, the NDCN has advanced scientific discoveries by building interdisciplinary collaborations, supporting a culture of open science, and developing robust tools and platforms for the broad research community. 

In 2023, we are excited to broaden the scope of our network to support investigation into areas of fundamental neuroscience that are synergistic with our existing network. We will be doing this not only through the second cycle of the Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award, but also a second cycle of the Collaborative Pairs Pilot Award. The upcoming Collaborative Pairs Pilot Award will support studies in neurodegeneration, as well as basic investigations into memory and cognition and sleep. We invite applications from investigators across the biomedical sciences, including those who do not currently work in the field of neurodegeneration. More information on scope and process will be provided when the RFA opens in May. 

The NDCN is hosting an informational webinar about the Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award on April 5, 2023, from 9-10 am Pacific Time to talk more about the opportunity and answer pre-submitted questions. Register and submit questions in advance.

Questions? Email sciencegrants@chanzuckerberg.com