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BCH-MIT Enterprise | Overview

The BCH-MIT Enterprise fosters the collaboration of investigators from Boston Children’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in their common pursuit of groundbreaking basic and translational research.

Our goal is to advance understanding and innovation in the biosciences through the “chemical reaction” triggered by the combination of diverse perspectives.

The Enterprise is working toward this goal through a major initiative:

  • joint research grants

The ultimate research grant: Boston Children’s and MIT

With collaboration in mind, Boston Children’s and MIT are forging closer links: the Boston Children's and MIT grant. These are one-year grants to support research between the institutions. Even the applications must be co-initiated and co-funded by two researchers, one with a primary faculty appointment at Boston Children’s and one at MIT.

Ideally, these funds are to be used to hire a student or postdoc. There are no restrictions on nationality or other demographic characteristics. OSP review and approval is not needed prior to your application, but it will be needed prior to the award. Yet other institutional requirements (e.g., approval of the department head, if necessary) must still be obtained.

Once selected, each grant is for $47,000 in direct costs, for one year, with no overhead.

Inside our application process

If you have any questions before submitting or when you’re ready to submit, send your questions or application to BCHMITgrant@childrens.harvard.edu.

All applications will be judged on:

  1. intellectual merit: on both innovation and impact
  2. collaborative nature: our goal is to link the labs. A Boston Children's fellow may spend a year at MIT or vice versa.
  3. synergism: using resources from both campuses

Application

To make this process universal, we ask that all information be filled on blank NIH continuation pages. Also, we ask that you use Arial 11 or comparable fonts and combine everything on a single .pdf document. Here’s what we need:

  1. cover sheet (1 page)
    • title of proposal
    • name and contact information of both PIs
    • abstract (200 words) of proposed research and three to five key words (e.g. “chemical biology”)
    • statement that any proposed animal work is covered by approved protocol(s), and specification of whose lab(s) will be used
    • brief description of
      • the relationship between the PIs
      • the way in which the work enhances collaboration between the institutions.
  2. research proposal (1 page)
  3. budget
  4. National Institutes of Health-style biosketches and support pages for PIs of both labs