Pilot Project Program

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The goal of our Pilot Project Program (PPP) is to provide funding for research (up to $35k per award), access to state-of-the-art Facility Cores (FCs), and intellectual support primarily for junior faculty and to recruit senior faculty to the Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan (CEHNM). Funding is targeted to projects that advance our understanding of the health impacts of environmental exposures over the life course, with a focus on the four themes for this funding cycle: Environmental Epidemiology, Environmental Epigenetics and Disease Mechanisms, Climate and Health, and Translation and Disease Prevention. In addition to supporting current CEHNM themes, the PPP is used to encourage the development of research in new directions outside of those themes as a way to develop novel areas of focus. The PPP also seeks to fund projects that concern the local communities (e.g., West Harlem, Central Harlem, Washington Heights/Inwood and the South Bronx), as identified by our Community Engagement Core (CEC). The PPP has successfully stimulated interest in environmental health issues by junior and senior investigators at the University who are not Center Members and provided them with access to the expertise of our senior investigators in the CEHNM as well as to our outstanding FCs, which enabled them to generate preliminary data for new grant applications. The success of the PPP is measured by new extramural grants awarded to Pilot Project (PP) investigators, publications resulting from PP research, junior faculty supported, new investigators to the CEHNM community, and new interdisciplinary projects developed. By all of these measures, the PPP has been an extraordinary success. Between 2008-2014 (last cycle and first two years of this cycle), the PPP received 76 proposals, of which 28 were funded. The $713K invested in these PPs resulted in 6 R01s, 2 R21s, 2 K awards, 1 R33, and 13 other grants for a total of $20.1M in new grants ($28 in grants for every $1 funded in pilots), as well as 32 PP publications. All of the funded PPs went to either junior faculty members or investigators who were not already CEHNM investigators. For the proposed funding cycle, the Specific Aims of the Pilot Project Program are as follows: Aim 1. Foster innovative environmental health science research that fills important research gaps identified in CEHNM working group areas and allows for the development of future CEHNM research directions. Aim 2. Support junior faculty members in developing creative, novel research projects that facilitate the establishment of an independent research program and further their careers. Aim 3. Bring new faculty members from the University to the CEHNM community to conduct innovative research that fills critical gaps in environmental health science research. Aim 4. Facilitate research that answers significant environmental health questions raised by the CEC. In summary, our PPP has a demonstrated history of supporting the development of significant, innovative environmental health research and training investigators who not only will conduct more of such research in the future but also become leaders in the field.