MiCM ResearchMatch 4.0

The McGill initiative in Computational Medicine is launching the fourth iteration of ResearchMatch. To realize the potential of Computational Medicine at McGill, there is a need to better connect researchers in life sciences and clinical domains with colleagues from data sciences (e.g., statistics, bioinformatics, medical informatics, computer science, epidemiology). The former has interesting datasets and questions, while the latter can apply or develop quantitative methods to look for solutions to these questions. However, biologists and clinician researchers don’t necessarily know where to find people with the right quantitative skills and who would like to collaborate and, conversely, data scientists don’t necessarily know who has interesting questions that they could help with.

The MRM Network is happy to partner with the MiCM for this iteration! If a project submitted by an MRM member is selected for funding, we will sponsor the project and contribute to the funding. Do not forget to list the MRM as one of your affiliations when registering!

The ResearchMatch Program

Objective

The seed funding envelope will support up to two McGill faculty members to plan, organize and analyze data (no data generation). The biological or clinical researcher and the data scientist submitting the joint project proposal must not have worked together before. All projects will be evaluated based on scientific excellence, evidence of synergy in the propose collaboration, and potential of the proposed work to progress to other funding competitions.

Steps of the ResearchMatch Program

To facilitate this type of matchmaking, the MiCM ResearchMatch Program will be accomplished through the following three steps:

Step 1: The McGill life science and clinical research communities will be consulted to ask for initial project submissions. Keywords along with a high-level summary will be displayed on the MiCM website.

Step 2: The McGill data science community and Mila affiliated researchers will be asked to look through the list of projects via the MiCM ResearchMatch Portal, contact project leads and, if there is a shared interest, develop a joint MiCM project proposal.

Step 3: Joint project proposals will be submitted and a number of projects will be selected for funding.

Funding envelope for each project will be small (10-50K) and will be restricted to funds to plan, organize and analyze data (no data generation). Project duration will be up to one year.

Beyond the projects that will be supported through the first phase of this program, the MiCM will also use the list of submitted projects to develop a scholars program. The idea there is that, for small scale projects, it might be sufficient to have a student working under the supervision of the project PI and a senior data scientist, without the requirement of a formal established collaboration. In this instance, the funding envelope would cover a student stipend.

Key dates

· Call for initial project submission: February 5th, 2021
· Date to submit initial project submission: March 5th, 2021
· Date to register joint project proposals: April 1st, 2021
· Announcements of winners: end of April/early May

Eligibility and Details

The researchers submitting the application must be from the McGill community, spanning the downtown campus Macdonald campus, the McGill academic hospitals and their affiliated research institutes or affiliated with Mila.

Selection criteria for full proposals will include:

  • One biological or clinical researcher and one data scientist who haven’t worked together before
  • Scientific excellence
  • Feasibility
  • Evidence of synergy in the proposed collaboration
  • Potential of the proposed work to progress to other funding competitions
  • Relevance to other McGill initiatives will also be considered
  • Impact of the collaboration in the laboratory setting

Funding envelope for each project will be small (10-50K) and will be restricted to funds to plan, organize and analyze data (no data generation). Project duration will be up to one year.

A short progress report for each project will be required at the end of the funded year.

Project Creation Form

Fill out the following information in the ResearchMatch portal to Create a Project:

· Project title
· Preferred project start date
· MiCM Axis
· High level abstract
· Project description (0.5-1 page)
· Description of datasets to be used (collaborations for study design are also encouraged)
· Explain why you see this as a collaborative research project and what you hope to gain from the collaboration. Highlight any potential of the proposed work to progress to other funding competition.
· Description of datasets to be used or generated.
· Relevant to the following organization/initiatives (Select all that apply) – IMPORTANT: do not forget to list the MRM Network as one of your affiliations.
· Expected project timeframe
· Can students apply for this project? (Y/N)
· Selected tags

Once a project has been submitted, the application will be visible to all. The projects can be sorted and easily searchable.

Next step: once the projects are listed on the portal a match needs to be made. Principle investigators can apply to listed projects.

Once a match has been made the second phase of the project is to work and make sense of the data.

***Please ignore the Application interface on the ResearchMatch portal. This is intended for our Summer Scholars program.

When do I apply?

Initial project submissions will be accepted starting Feb 5th, 2021.

Where do I apply?

Projects can be created in the ResearchMatch Portal: https://micm.genap.ca/

Found a Match? Inform the MiCM by filling out the webform

For any inquiries and/or assistance, please contact info-micm@mcgill.ca

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