What We Fund & How We Fund It
One of our goals at Autism Speaks is to identify and support promising research with the hope that results from these efforts will produce significant findings that will be reported in peer-reviewed journals. We also hope that grants we fund will lead to additional research support from government or other funding agencies. Since 1997, the organizations combined have committed more than $89 million to fund more than 737 research projects and fellowships. The investment in these research grants alone has been leveraged into nearly $153 million in NIH and other funding for the continuation of these scientific studies.
Grants
– Each year Autism Speaks holds a variety of investigator-initiated grant calls. We are pleased to be able to support many different types of projects, each critical for advancing all phases of autism research, from basic to clinical to treatment. These grants are crucial for allowing investigators to gain enough data to be able to attract even larger, multi-year commitments from the NIH and other traditional medical research funding organizations. Our grants include pilot grants, basic and clinical grants, and treatment and technology grants. For a brief description of each, click here.
Fellowships
– Fellowships provide the necessary resources to support and encourage the development of young scientists who benefit from the mentorship of prominent researchers. We believe the investment in autism research training will grow exponentially as many of our fellows later assume teaching roles and join departments around the country and the world, many of which currently have no representation in autism research. For a brief description of our Fellowships, click here.
Please note that in addition to our investigator-initiated grants and fellowships, we also support research through funding of proactive initiatives, including collaborative projects, resources and meetings. See below for brief descriptions and follow the links to more information.
Initiatives
– As important as individual grants, initiative projects give Autism Speaks a much more proactive role in promoting specific research. Initiatives unite researchers working towards a common goal, whether it is based in genetics, behavioral sciences or another field of research. Autism Speaks supports collaborations and consortiums in autism research because autism spectrum disorders are very complex and continue to baffle the finest minds in research. IN fact, many experts agree that a collaborative approach to autism research is the only way science will solve the mysteries of this devastating disorder. Learn more about specific initiative projects and scientific meetings by clicking these links.
Resources
– One way to speed research is to build the resources necessary for others to do their work more efficiently. Autism Speaks has created several open resources available for the scientific community. These are assets that benefit all researchers. Currently our resource programs include biobanks such as the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange (AGRE) and the Autism Tissue Program (ATP). In addition, the Clinical Trials Network (CTN) and the Autism Treatment Network (ATN) provide infrastructure for collaborative medical research and clinical trials. Visit our Resources and Programs section for more information.
Autism Speaks Grant Review Process
As listed above, our funding mechanisms offer a variety of support opportunities. The process commences when the Requests for Applications (RFAs) for various programs are published. Before submitting an application for research support, we advise an applicant to carefully review the applicable RFA for all submission criteria to identify a mechanism that best meets scientific needs. A complete listing of all the research announcements and their corresponding timetables for researchers can be found here.
The first stage of providing fair and expert review for grant applications submitted to Autism Speaks consists of scientific peer review by a group of highly esteemed basic and clinical scientists that form our Advisory Boards. Additional expertise may be provided by ad-hoc reviewers in order to ensure that the scientific coverage is thorough. The panel uses standard guidelines for scoring grant applications with an emphasis on innovation, scientific rigor, and relevance to the mission of Autism Speaks. All reviewer conflicts of interest must be revealed prior to the panel review meeting. Conflicts of interest include, but are not limited to, employment at the same sponsoring institution and collaboration on recent or current research projects. All discussions of scientific merit are conducted in the absence of any reviewers who have declared conflicts of interest.
The peer review panel recommendations are then reviewed by the Autism Speaks Scientific Review Panel (SRP), a group of five scientific and medical experts that includes parents of children with autism. All recommendations for funding are made by the SRP to Autism Speaks Board of Directors. SRP funding recommendations are based on scientific merit (as evaluated by the peer review panel), budgetary considerations and discussions of relevancy and priority to the mission of Autism Speaks. Final approval is required by the Autism Speaks Board of Directors before funding may occur.
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