2027 Notice of Funding Opportunity

The Office of the Vice President for Research Affairs is pleased to request applications for the 2027 Grants for Research and School Partnerships Program. These awards provide support for investigators from different schools to collaborate in pioneering research projects. GRASP, GRASP INTL, and  SIMS are designed to be awards that focus on collaborative partnerships with the goal of increasing the ability of new researchers to apply for extramural grants.

View the complete Notice of Funding Opportunities for each grant below. You must sign in with your LLU.edu Microsoft account to access the documents.

  • GRASP 2027 Notice of Funding Opportunity 
  • GRASP INTL 2027 Notice of Funding Opportunity
  • SIMS 2027 Notice of Funding Opportunity

Please note that a Letter of Intent (LOI), including signatures from both PIs, must be received by the applicable deadline to be eligible for application submission. GRASP and SIMS LOIs should be submitted to the Pre-Award Office at [email protected]. For GRASP International inquiries, please contact Wesley James at [email protected].

Below are instructions on how to upload your proposal to the LLeRA system (InfoEd).

Deadlines

GRASP, GRASP INTL, AND SIMS

Letters of Intents and applications must be received by 5 PM (Pacific Time).

GRASP

  • Letter of Intent due on November 6, 2026
  • Applications due December 18, 2026
  • Awards announced March 2027
  • Earliest project start date April 1, 2027

GRASP International

  • Letter of Intent due on September 15, 2026
  • Applications due December 10, 2026
  • Awards announced March 2027
  • Earliest project start date April 1, 2027

SIMS

  • Letter of Intent due on November 6, 2026
  • Applications due December 18, 2026
  • Awards announced March 2027
  • Earliest project start date April 1, 2027

Criteria for Evaluation

Awards will be based primarily on scientific merit, including significance, innovation, originality of approach, technical merit, and consistency with institutional interests and goals. The quality of co-PI collaboration, the PI leadership plan, budget justification, and potential for future funding will also be considered.

Inclusion of preliminary data supporting the proposed study is recommended. In the absence of preliminary data, strong literature support for the planned study is required.

The focus will be on funding high-impact, paradigm-shifting, innovative projects. Consequently, applications must clearly describe the potential impact of the proposed project on the field and highlight its innovative elements. Applications are expected to appropriately address issues of rigor and reproducibility.

Proposals will be reviewed by a panel of investigators selected to include individuals with extramural funding and service on federal grant review panels. Applications focused on social, behavioral, and qualitative research may be reviewed by a subset of panel members with expertise in those disciplines.To the extent possible, applications will be kept confidential throughout the review process. However, abstracts of funded projects will be published.

Principal Investigator Requirements

  • GRASP: Two faculty co-Principal Investigators from different schools on the LLU campus, including Medical Center or FMG employees.
  • GRASP INTL: Two co-Principal Investigators. One co-PI must be an LLUH faculty member. The second co-PI must be a professional with a post-baccalaureate degree and employed by an international SDA hospital, medical center, college, or university. The non-LLU co-PI must be approved by the Office of the Vice President for Research Affairs prior to Letter of Intent phase
  • SIMS: The project must be directed by an eligible LLU PI from any LLU school. The research collaborator must be from an R1 research institution and have expertise in the discipline relevant to the application. He or she must also have a primary appointment corresponding to this expertise.

Eligibility for Previous GRASP & SIMS Recipients

Eligibility for previous GRASP recipients (one page for each previous GRASP awardee, to be submitted with LOI form):

  • Extramural grant applications (LLeRA number, PI, title, sponsor, submission date, amount, status)
  • Peer-reviewed and published papers acknowledging GRASP support

Eligibility for previous SIMS recipients:

  • Extramural grant applications (LLeRA number, Principal Investigator, title, sponsor, submission date, amount, and current status)
  • Peer-reviewed publications published or accepted subsequent to the GRASP award that acknowledge SIMS funding support (include a PDF or hyperlink to the publication)

Contacts:

Previous Awardees

2026

Awardees Awards
Dr. Wanqiu Chen & Dr. Ike C. De La Peña - GRASP Mechanisms of Craving and Relapse Vulnerability in Fentanyl-Xylazine Co-Use
Dr. Adina Achiriloaie & Dr. Richelin Veluz Dye - GRASP Brain Imaging Changes in Patients Receiving ECT as Predictor of Outcome
Dr. Tandis Soltani & Dr. Alex Dubov - GRASP Optimizing Early Hemorrhage Control through Rapid Transport and Prehospital Blood Transfusion Strategies
Dr. Susanne Montgomery & Ms. Dorothy Awuah - GRASP INTL Building Capacity for HIV Self Testing and Prevention Through Community Pharmacies in Ghana’s Mining Regions
Dr. Brandie Richards & Dr. Gilny Rantung - GRASP INTL Nurse Retention and Faith‑based Care Delivery: A Cross-cultural Mixed-Methods Study in Adventist Health Institutions
Dr. Monita Baba-Djara & Dr. Lilian Mutesu Silavwe - GRASP INTL Combating the spread of Malaria: Community-based surveillance and behavioral interventions
Dr. Rameshwar Patil & Dr. Alireza Najafabadi - SIMS Microneedle-Based Delivery of Immunotherapeutics for Local Immune Activation in Malignant Glioma

2025

Awardees Awards
Shu-Wei (Richard) Sun and Victoria Maskiewicz-GRASP Oral SIgA immunoglobulin treatment to prevent gastrointestinal mucositis caused by chemotherapy
Styliani (Stella) Goulopoulou and Andrea Salcedo-GCAT Circulating extracellular vesicles in patients with uterine fibroids
Johnny D. Figueroa, collaboration with UCLA-SIMS Gut Microbial Mechanisms Contributing to Food Addiction and Obesity
Cameron Neece, collaboration with Columbia University-SIMS Behavioral Parent Training: A Community-Driven Implementation Study

2024

Awardees Awards
Ahmed Khocht and Esther Wu-GRASP The Impact of Bariatric Surgery on Periodontal Health
Yan Chen Wongworawat and Minh Phuong Dong-GRASP Noninvasive Prognostic Biomarker for Oral Cancer using RNA Sequencing
Aarti Nair and Brenda Bartnik-Olson-GRASP Neural Mechanisms Underlying Sleep Disturbances in Autism
Julia Unternaehrer and Yeygeniya Ioffe-GCAT Reversing Chemoresistance in Organoid and Patient-Derived Xenograft Models of Ovarian Cancer
Mary Kearns-Jonker and David Rabkin-GCAT Tissue Engineering for Cardiovascular Repair
David Hessinger and Ciprian Gheorghe-GCAT The BK channel as a potential therapeutic target to ameliorate effects of intrauterine hypoxia

2023

Awardees Awards
Hansel Fletcher, collaboration with Jamaica-GI  A Proposed Loma Linda University Health International Center for Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance (LLUH-ICARS): A pilot for a private Healthcare Sector Model
Zephon Lister collaboration with Kenya-GI Families, Schools and Community Engaged Together (FASCET): A Community Resiliency Model (CRM) Based Family Resiliency for 5th Grade Students in Kajiado County, Kenya
Mark Reeves collaboration with Malawi-GI Presentation Treatment patterns and Outcomes in patients Receiving care for Esophageal Squamous Cell Cancer in a Low Resource setting; a Feasibility Study at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and Malamulo Adventist Hospital in Southern Malawi
John Zhong and Minh-Tri Nguyen-GCAT Detection of alloreactive T lymphocyte clones to predict acute rejection after kidney transplantation
Huan Wang and Charles Wang-GCAT Investigating the genetic mechanisms of heritable connective tissue disorders and skeletal dysplasia