The Community and Collaboration Core (CCC) offers pilot funding to establish and develop community-engaged research (CEnR) partnerships through relationship-building activities, exploring research interests, and developing infrastructure and governance for research partnerships.
The 2024 application period is closed.
The CEnR grant program takes a phased approach to developing community-academic research partnerships and emphasizes sustained engagement. Partnership Development grants are smaller awards (up to $10,000) that support the creation of CEnR partnerships. Recipients of Partnership Development grants are eligible to apply for a second year of funding (up to $25,000) through the Advancing Collaboration Grants.
Projects are expected to use approaches along the continuum of engagement, including community-based participatory research, patient-centered outcomes research, or other engaged research collaborations. The grant program encourages the participation of new and/or junior faculty investigators and the participation and/or training of new or inexperienced community investigators and doctoral students with an established team.
All projects must be designed to be feasible to complete within 12 months.
Grant Type 1: Partnership Development Grant
These grants provide up to $10,000 per grantee and aim to support partnership-building activities for “new” collaborations between faculty from three academic institutions (Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland at Baltimore, and Morgan State University) and a community partner (a community- or faith-based organization or public agency) from the Greater Baltimore area.
While Partnership Development Grants may include some formative research activities, the grant program intends to support activities that set the stage for future CEnR endeavors.
Possible Partnership Development Grant activities may include, but are not limited to:
- Developing/establishing research partnership infrastructure (e.g., advisory boards, partnership roles and responsibilities, policies and procedures, memoranda of understanding).
- Facilitating formal or informal meetings for partners to identify shared goals, priorities, and research interests.
- Holding listening sessions with community members around challenges and opportunities to address community health needs.
- Building research capacity for community partners (e.g., setting up reliance agreements, conducting IRB training, providing training on research design and methods).
- Building CEnR research capacity for academic partners (e.g., principles of community engagement, 10-step Framework, cultural humility, dissemination).
Partnership development grants applications are accepted every other year, starting in Fall 2024.
Grant Type 2: Advancing Collaboration Grant
This grant is only available to recipients of the Partnership Development Grant to support the strengthening and/or expansion of their community engagement activities. Application budgets are allowed up to $25,000 in direct costs but must be commensurate with the scope of the proposed research. Potential aims of an advancing collaboration grant may include (but are not limited to):
- Supporting investigators and partners in community-engaged research (CEnR) capacity development (e.g., training, organizational capacity)
- Expanding partnership activities to include new/additional community members/organizations
- Developing research questions and/or project design together and submitting for further funding and/or IRB approval.
- Initiating or expanding project/research activities identified through the existing partnership.
- Conducting a small pilot study to build evidence to secure additional research funding.
- Disseminating scientific information together through developing a manuscript or conference presentation or sharing lessons learned with the broader community.
- Preparing and submitting research proposals for external funding based on the data collected during the original CCC pilot grant.
Applications for Advancing Collaboration Grants are accepted every other year, starting in Fall 2025. Only recipients of partnership development grants are eligible to apply.
