Faculty Grants
The Wisconsin Partnership Program’s Faculty Grants support innovative research to prevent, diagnose, treat and cure diseases. These grants target a multitude of issues affecting Wisconsinites, including Alzheimer’s disease, blindness, cancer, diabetes, infectious disease, maternal and child health, obesity and more.
The Wisconsin Partnership Program administers four faculty grant programs:
The Collaborative Health Sciences Program provides up to $600,000 over three years to support interdisciplinary team science to advance novel research or education approaches to target complex health problems while advancing health, health care and health equity in Wisconsin and beyond. The primary project team is composed of one Principal Investigator and one or two Co-principal Investigators and must include two or more of the following disciplines: basic, clinical, education, informatics/data, population, social/behavioral, and/or translational sciences. In addition, the team may include a number of collaborators consistent with the scope of the project.
New Investigator Program career development awards are $150,000 over two years and support early-career faculty in initiating innovative research and/or educational approaches that address health and health equity in Wisconsin. The program funds innovative proposals that may be leveraged for external funding. Principal investigators must be assistant professors at the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
The Opportunity Grant Program provides start-up funding to rapidly establish time-critical, high-profile, high-impact, state-of-the art education and research projects to address Wisconsin’s most pressing and complex health challenges.
The COVID-19 Response Research and Education Grant Program provided two funding opportunities to support UW–Madison researchers in addressing the immediate and ongoing health challenges of the pandemic. Grants supported medical, scientific and public health approaches to understanding, tracking and treating COVID-19, addressing and reducing the long-term health consequences and impact of the pandemic.
The Wisconsin Partnership Program also provides Strategic Education and Research Grants that provide critical funding to selected investigators and teams to initiate or enhance novel infrastructure programs and initiatives to improve health and health care and advance health equity in Wisconsin.
Five-Year Plan
Learn more about the Wisconsin Partnership Program’s vision, mission and values as well as its goals and grant-making strategies as described in the 2019-2024 Five-Year Plan.
Collaborative Health Sciences Program
This program supports interdisciplinary team science to advance novel research or education approaches that bring together different disciplines to target complex health problems while advancing health, health care or health equity in Wisconsin and beyond.
Grant awards: Grant awards are up to $600,000 over three years. The Partnership Education and Research Committee anticipates funding up to five projects during the 2024 grant cycle to include at least one community-engaged research project and at least one basic or translational science project.
Applicant eligibility: The primary project team is composed of one Principal Investigator (PI) and one or two Co-principal Investigators and must include two or more of the following disciplines: basic, clinical, education, informatics/data, population, social/behavioral, and/or translational sciences. In addition, the team may include a number of collaborators consistent with the scope of the project.
A PI must have a salaried appointment of at least 50 percent as professor, associate professor, or academic staff with permanent PI status in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health. Co-principal investigators and collaborators may have appointments at any UW System campus, Aurora Health Care, Marshfield Clinic, Gundersen Health System, the Medical College of Wisconsin, state and local government agencies, or community organizations.
Application Materials and Links
2024 Collaborative Health Sciences Request for Proposals
Key Dates and Deadlines
Please see the Request for Proposals for a complete list of key dates and deadlines.
- January 8, 2024: Release Request for Proposals
- January and February 2024: Preliminary application office hours (link in Request for Proposals)
- February 12, 2024: Preliminary application deadline
- April 9, 2024: Notify applicants of status/Invite full applicants
- April 23, 2024: Full application information session (by invitation only)
- May 7, 2024 at 5 p.m. CST: Full application submission deadline (by invitation only)
- June 18, 2024: Notify applicants of status/invite finalist teams for interviews
- July 22, 2024: Finalist presentations
- July 31, 2024: Notify finalists of award decisions
- September 1, 2024: Earliest project start date
Past Grantees
New Investigator Program
The New Investigator Program is designed to foster the development of early career faculty in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health as they initiate new, innovative research or education pilot projects to improve health, health care and/or health equity in Wisconsin and beyond. This grant program funds proposals from new faculty with strong potential to leverage more substantial support from federal or other granting agencies.
Successful applicants will join a highly distinguished cohort of more than 79 assistant professors from departments across the School of Medicine and Public Health who launched their careers through grants that together total more than $8.5 million. Their work, which spans the spectrum of basic science, clinical and translational and applied public and community health research, has leveraged $51 million.
Grant awards: Grants are up to $150,000 over two years.
Applicant eligibility: A Principal Investigator is required and must be a UW School of Medicine and Public Health assistant professor with a salaried appointment of at least 50 percent and an appointment start-date on or after the dates below based on their faculty track. For applicants with approved clock extensions, the appointment start-date is adjusted by the duration of the extension. Applicants with appointments below 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE), or with eligibility questions, please contact the Wisconsin Partnership Program at wpp@hslc.wisc.edu.
Eligible faculty in basic science and clinical science departments across the UW School of Medicine and Public Health are encouraged to apply.
Application Materials and Links
New Investigator Program Request for Proposals
Key Dates and Deadlines
- July 12, 2023: Release Request for Proposals
- July and August 2023: Preliminary application office hours
- August 16, 2023: Preliminary application submission deadline
- October 18, 2023: Notify applicants of status/Invite full applications
- November 15, 2023: Full application submission deadline (by invitation only)
- January 9, 2024: Notify applicants of status/Invite finalists for interviews
- February 12, 2024: Finalist interviews
- February 29, 2024: Notify finalists of award decision
- April 1, 2024: Earliest project start date
Past Grantees
Opportunity Grant Program
The Opportunity Grant Program provides start-up funding to rapidly establish time-critical, high-profile, high-impact, state-of-the art education and research projects to address Wisconsin’s most pressing and complex health challenges.
Opportunity Grants support groundbreaking research and education projects that fulfill two or more of the following criteria:
- Have the potential to transform a field of study
- Represent a novel application of an established idea or approach
- Challenge traditional thought and practice
- Engage perspectives and approaches from nontraditional partners such as disproportionately impacted communities
- Benefit from an influx of funds to quickly advance the area in significant ways
Proposals must be highly innovative with a clear path to secure additional funding from other sources to sustain the program long-term. The project team must describe how the project will improve health or advance health equity in alignment with the Wisconsin Partnership Program’s 2019-2024 Five-Year Plan framework. Proposals must address specific knowledge gaps or scientific opportunities, advance novel research methods, or enhance the education of the future health workforce while paving the way to create healthier communities and advancing health equity. The proposal must include clear and measurable benchmarks to track progress toward the overall objectives and the specific aims. Proposals must describe the need for a rapid influx of funds to support the project. Applicants must address why submission of the proposal through the New Investigator Program or Collaborative Health Sciences Program is not feasible.
Application Materials and Links
COVID-19 Response Grant Program
The Wisconsin Partnership provided COVID-19 Response grants to researchers at the School of Medicine and Public Health and UW–Madison to directly and quickly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Grants supported innovative, high-impact approaches and strategies to address the immediate challenges of the pandemic as well as its long-term health consequences.