Neurodegenerative diseases of aging are among the least understood and most undertreated diseases today. If ignored, the social and economic costs of managing these diseases will continue to rise. Meeting these challenges requires pioneering approaches to accelerating treatments.

The Rapid Response: Canada program was created to provide seed funding to catalyse novel, high-risk, high-reward translational research. Preliminary data is not required.

*The deadline for submitting applications to the Rapid Response: Canada 2020 program has now passed*

To see the results of the program and grantees awarded, please visit: Nearly $10 million in grants awarded to neuroscience researchers across Canada.

Continuing for 2020

• The budget of the Rapid Response: Canada 2020 program has been increased to a maximum of $300,000 over up to 18 months.
• Expanding the type of complementary approaches eligible for funding to other lifestyle interventions including but not limited to: speech therapy, cognitive therapy, music therapy, social interaction, if these applications meet our other scope criteria and have specific supportive evidence/justification (from published literature or unpublished data) to warrant further investigation.
• Encouraging applications that bring in other fields such as: AI, big data, machine learning, data science, and computer science.

Program Overview

Goal: To provide seed funding for novel, high-risk, high-reward, translational research that will accelerate the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases of aging.

Funding: A maximum of $300,000 over up to 18 months per project.

Applicant Eligibility: Eligible Principal Applicants must be working in Canada at least 30% of the time at or above the level of Postdoctoral researcher, and be affiliated with a Canada Revenue Agency-qualified donee institution located in Canada. Co-Applicants/Collaborators must be at the post-doctoral level or above and can be working outside Canada.

If the Principal Applicant is not appointed at the institution from which they are applying, they need to apply with a research supervisor (an “Administrative Supervisor”) who is at or above the level of Assistant Professor or equivalent, with an appointment at the institution from which they are applying.

Applicants may appear in any role on any number of projects.

Project Eligibility:

• Be translational research that helps accelerate the development of therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases of aging
• Be the development of a therapeutic and/or tool, and/or select complementary approaches (Please refer to the Program Details for more information)
• *Preliminary data is not required for this program

The Rapid Response program will have multiple calls per year, alternating between two different disease groups (outlined below). Applicants should apply to the group best suited to their project.

Application Process

The application process consists of two stages:

1. Letters of Intent (LOIs)
2. Proposals

An application requires the submission of a Letter of Intent which will be reviewed by our scientific review committee. Applicants with high potential projects will then be invited to submit a Proposal. Instructions for submitting the Proposal will be sent to those invited.

Program Documents

Program Details

Program Information Webinar

The Institute will hold a Program Information Webinar for each disease focus, to provide further details on the program and answer any questions. However, if you have questions specific to your project (e.g., project scope), we encourage you to contact us.

Alzheimer’s & Related Diseases: February 24, 2020 at 1:00pm ET
The webinar has passed.

Parkinson’s & Related Diseases: March 20, 2020 at 1:00pm ET
The webinar has passed.