Research for a Cure
Current Grant Opportunities
The Lymphoma Research Foundation announces Requests for Proposals on a regular basis each year. In calendar year 2024, the Foundation will offer its 2025 Early Career Grant programs; the Clinical Investigator Career Development Award (CDA), Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant, and Lymphoma Scientific Research Mentoring Program (LSRMP).
FAQs about our grant programs are listed below. To receive an email notification when future RFPs are released, please click here to subscribe to research grant announcements.
For information about applying for patient aid grants, please visit lymphoma.org/financialsupport.
Current RFPs
Early Career Grants – 2025 Applications and RFPs (Deadline September 5, 2024, 5 pm EST)
- Clinical Investigator Career Development Award (CDA) RFP
- Postdoctoral Fellowship Grant RFP
- Lymphoma Scientific Research Mentoring Program (LSRMP) RFP
Sample Policy, Terms, and Conditions
- Research Grants Policy, Terms, and Conditions (CDA)
- Research Grants Policy, Terms, and Conditions (Fellowship)
- LSRMP Policy, Terms, and Conditions
Video Guides
NOTE: Lymphoma Research Foundation reserves the right to establish any announcement date and deadline it deems necessary and appropriate for any RFP, and to change deadlines, forms, and guidelines, plus any and all details pertaining to grant availability, rules, eligibility criteria, selection process, etc. All Foundation Research Grants are dependent on funding availability.
Research Grant FAQs
- Clinical Investigator Career Development Award (CDA) FAQs
- General Research Grant FAQs
- Postdoctoral Fellowship FAQs
- Lymphoma Scientific Research Mentoring Program (LSRMP) FAQs
Yes– the focus of the training is to prepare clinicians to design and administer clinical studies in lymphoma and to take on the primary responsibilities for clinical trial design, protocol writing, Institutional Review Board (IRB) submission, and publication. Proposals must involve clinical observation of human subjects and may include study or development of new diagnostic, methods, therapies, and/or outcome measurements directed to patients with lymphoma. Studies or proposals that are exclusively laboratory based are not appropriate for this program. Translational aims on a CDA project are permitted as long as it is not the primary focus of the project. Please read the RFP carefully for guidelines on incorporating translational research aims.
No– applicants must be licensed clinical physicians in one of the ACGME accredited specialties and be working at a clinical research institution in the United States or Canada for the duration of the grant award period.
The Clinical Investigator must spend a minimum of 35 to 50 percent of his/her time in research. This time should be free of major patient care, teaching or administrative responsibilities.
Each CDA applicant should have a primary mentor that is not designated as primary mentor for another Lymphoma Research Foundation CDA applicant in the same cycle. The primary mentor should be in a faculty role (preferably senior faculty) in the department where the applicant will be performing the research for their CDA project. If there are multiple CDA applicants with the same primary mentor, the Foundation will request that the mentor designate which application to accept for review.
Please note that a CDA applicant may have a primary mentor who has served as mentor for a CDA applicant in a past cycle (even if that applicant is currently an active CDA grantee). A CDA applicant may also have a primary mentor who is serving as primary mentor for a Postdoctoral Fellowship and/or LSRMP applicant in the current cycle.
In 2025, the Lymphoma Research Foundation will be funding a minimum of one CDA with a project that focuses exclusively on T-cell lymphomas. This project may be focused on a specific T-cell lymphoma subtype or a broader group of T-cell lymphomas (such as peripheral T-cell lymphomas).
The Foundation will also be funding a minimum of one CDA for a project which focuses on health equity issues in lymphoma and CLL or whose PI self-identifies as a member of an underrepresented group in medicine. Please see the RFP for full details on eligibility.
This award is offered in addition to funding already reserved for CDAs; applicants who are eligible for special initiative funding will also be considered for CDAs funded through other sources.
LOI’s are not required for most Lymphoma Research Foundation grants (including all early-career grant programs). When an LOI is required for a disease focus area grant (for example, the Follicular Lymphoma Priority Research Grant), those are generally announced in the early spring.
The submission deadline for all full applications in the 2025 grant cycle is 5:00 pm EST on Thursday, September 5, 2024.
Early career investigator grants are generally open to advanced fellows and junior faculty who are working at a non-profit organization or research institution such as universities, colleges, hospitals, and laboratories in the United States and Canada. The CDA is open to clinical fellows and faculty only; the Postdoctoral Fellowship is open to both clinical and postdoctoral fellows. The LSRMP is open to both clinical and postdoctoral fellows, while faculty eligibility is dependent on whether the applicant chooses the clinical or lab/translational track. Please refer to the individual RFPs for exact eligibility criteria.
Disease Focus Area grants are open to principal investigators who hold an academic faculty appointment of assistant, associate, or full professor or its equivalent, at non-profit organizations or public or private institutions such as universities, colleges, hospitals, and laboratories in the United States and Canada, as long as the project fits the focus area criteria outlined in the RFP. For-profit entities are not eligible to apply for LRF funds. Please refer to the individual RFPs for exact eligibility criteria.
PIs based at U.S. government institutions, including the NIH, are only eligible to apply to the Lymphoma Scientific Research Mentoring Program (LSRMP). As of 2022, all other LRF grant mechanisms are not open to federal PIs.
If you are unsure if an investigator or specific project are eligible for a particular Lymphoma Research Foundation grant, please contact researchgrants@lymphoma.org well in advance of the deadline.
The Lymphoma Research Foundation’s grant programs fund research projects that focus exclusively on the study of lymphoma and/or chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). Projects which combine the study of lymphoma/CLL with another cancer or hematologic malignancy (including myeloma and other leukemias) will not be accepted. Different mechanisms may require a focus on a specific type of research (for example, the CDA requires a project with a significant clinical component), or a focus on a specific lymphoma subtype or patient population. Database studies, health outcomes research, and/or epidemiological studies, or projects with these components, are welcome where indicated in the RFP. Please review individual RFPs carefully to determine if a project aligns with the eligibility criteria.
If you are unsure if an investigator or project is eligible for a particular grant project, please contact researchgrants@lymphoma.org well in advance of the deadline.
For most Lymphoma Research Foundation research grants in the 2025 cycle the earliest available start date is March 1, 2025 and the latest available start date is July 1, 2025. Applicants who cannot start their projects or accept funding until after July 1 should apply in the next cycle.
For LSRMP awards, the RFP specifies the exact dates that should be used for the budget periods, the Lymphoma Research Foundation cannot adjust dates for LSRMP awards.
Between 2020-2024, the average success rate for applicants to Lymphoma Research Foundation grant programs was as follows:
Clinical Investigator Career Development Awards: 32%
Postdoctoral Fellowship Grants: 35%
LSRMP-Clinical Track: 48%
LSRMP-Translational Track: 61%
FL Priority Research Grant: LOI Approval 67%, Application Success 43%
Please note: The LSRMP-Translational Track is based on four years of applications, 2021-2024. The FL Priority Research Grant success rates are based on the two years this program has thus far been offered, 2022-2023.
Early career grants do not allow overhead or indirect costs, however faculty-level grants, when offered, usually allow a set percentage of overhead and indirect costs, which are included in the total award amount.
Eligible applicants must be a citizen of the United States or Canada or hold a visa to work in the United States or Canada. In addition, applicants must be able to commit to remaining at an American or Canadian institution for the duration of the project. *In some cases, Disease Focus Area grants may allow international collaborators if the majority of work is being done at a U.S. or Canadian institution.
No. Applicants to these programs must be based at an institution in the United States or Canada for the duration of the project.
Applications should be filed in the name of one person who will serve as the primary PI for administrative purposes (disbursing funds, filing reports, etc.).
For Disease Focus Area grants, a “co-PI” may be designated under certain circumstances– please see the program RFP for specific guidelines. Early Career Grants (CDA, Fellowship, LSRMP) should not include co-PIs.
No. Applicants are not required to mail a hard copy of any application component. Please note that the signature page on every Lymphoma Research Foundation application should now be signed electronically directly through Proposal Central, please see the RFP for details.
Any waiver pages required by the application can be signed in one of two ways:
1)Printed, signed by the appropriate parties, and uploaded into the application as a PDF before submission.
2)Signed via an electronic signature program such as Adobe or DocuSign. Any program that includes a verification mark or code with the electronic signature is acceptable.
In keeping with current NIH policy, the Lymphoma Research Foundation requests all applicants to provide ORCiDs at the time of application. Please follow the instructions in the “Applicant” screen of the Proposal Central application to link an existing account or create a new one at orcid.org.
The Foundation strongly encourages applicants to obtain and/or provide their ORCiDs as we anticipate moving ORCiDs to a requirement in future application cycles.
Please use the current NIH biosketch format. Postdoctoral Fellowship applicants should note that if they choose to use the fellowship biosketch they are not required to include grades and courses in Section D. All other grant applicants and any mentors, sponsors, or key personnel should use the non-fellowship biosketch template.
Any legible font 11 points or larger is acceptable.
Margins may be adjusted but should be no smaller than .75 inches on any side.
Yes, please refer to the RFP for each program for page limits. Please note that where page limits are indicated, proposals which exceed those limits will be disqualified from review.
While the Lymphoma Research Foundation prefers that abstracts be as close to 100 words (500-800 characters) as possible, as long as the abstract is within the character limit allowed in Proposal Central, it will be accepted.
The format of letters of support is left to the discretion of the writer; please refer to each program’s RFP for content requirements. All letters should be submitted on institutional letterhead. In general, support letters should be written by someone familiar with the applicant’s work in general and/or the proposed project specifically.
Postdoctoral Fellowship, CDA, and LSRMP applicants should note that their mentor or sponsor letter should include a detailed description of the applicant’s contribution to the proposed project (any work the applicant individually did to develop the project independently of the sponsor or other colleagues).
Additional letters, uploaded as part of the appendix, may be required to verify support from pharmaceutical partners or other collaborating entities. Review each program’s RFP for details.
Please also note that all anonymized support letters must be uploaded into Proposal Central prior to the deadline or the application cannot be submitted. Applicants should confirm that their letter writers have received their request email from Proposal Central and are able to log in to the system well in advance of the deadline to avoid issues with their submission. For issues with accessing Proposal Central to upload a letter, please have your letter writers contact Proposal Central technical support (see RFP for contact information).
Publications must be uploaded in PDF format.
If IRB/IACUC/etc. approval is applicable to the project and has been received, in the “Organization Assurances” screen of the Proposal Central application select “approved,” fill in the appropriate certificate numbers, and upload proof of approval as an attachment. Note: applicants only need to upload proof of approval, not the full certificate.
If approval has not yet been received, select “pending” as the response, and upload an attachment noting that approval is pending and the approximate date a decision is expected. Please also include in the Quantitative Milestones section of your research proposal when approval is expected or, if you have not yet submitted your proposal for approval, what date you expect to do so.
Please note that you must demonstrate receipt of the appropriate assurances in order to receive your award, if selected. You will be asked to provide proof of approval after you are notified of your award.
LSRMP applicants will also be asked to indicate any pending or procured assurances on the Cover Sheet template, although for LSRMP projects it is expected that projects may not yet be ready to submit for assurance approval.
proposalCENTRAL allows applicants to store other research support in their individual profile and import it into an application as needed. Follow the directions on the application page to import funding from your profile to the application, or use the indicated buttons to open your profile to add new entries. For technical assistance with this section, contact proposalCENTRAL technical support at pcsupport@altum.com.
Applications will be reviewed by members of the Lymphoma Research Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB), which is comprised of some of the leaders in the field of lymphoma research, and, where applicable, other researchers with expertise in the specific areas being funded.
The Lymphoma Research Foundation Scientific Advisory Board may elect to provide feedback to applicants discussed during the final round of review. This feedback will be for the improvement of future grant submissions only; responses and resubmissions during the current grant cycle are not permitted. The SAB’s decision is final.
Please note, if an applicant chooses to revise and resubmit a project in a future application cycle, they should indicate the project is a resubmission on the appropriate question in the application system and follow the instructions in the RFP for resubmissions. Beginning in 2023, the Foundation requires that any resubmissions of applications that received feedback in a previous cycle indicate in their research proposal how they have responded to that feedback.
All applicants who submit a full application in the 2025 cycle will be notified in writing by December 21, 2024.
Your primary mentor/sponsor should be based at your home institution, however, you are welcome to have associate mentors or sponsors at other institutions if their expertise will be particularly relevant to your proposed project. Please note if you have more than one mentor/sponsor, a biosketch should be submitted for each person, and each person should submit separate recommendation letters – however the associate mentor/sponsor letters may count towards your additional required recommendation letters.
No, both laboratory and clinic based projects are acceptable, but the results and conclusions must be clearly relevant to the treatment, diagnosis or prevention of Hodgkin and/or non-Hodgkin lymphoma (including chronic lymphocytic leukemia). Areas of research may include, but are not limited to, etiology, immunology, genetics, therapies and transplantation. Historically, most successful applications in this program have focused on basic, translational, and epidemiological research.
No. Postdoctoral Fellowships are not open to applicants in faculty positions prior to the start of the award period (March 1, 2025). Applicants receiving an award may move into a faculty position during the period of the grant.
Junior faculty members in clinical research may be eligible to apply to the CDA, and Instructor or junior level PhDs may be also eligible for the LSRMP; see those RFPs for details.
If you are a PhD not participating in an ACGME fellowship program, the two year requirement does not apply to you. You may apply for the fellowship at any time as long as you will not be beyond the maximum limit set in the RFP as of March 1, 2025.
Yes– clinical fellows must have completed at least two years (24 months) of fellowship work and no more than six years (72 months) of fellowship work as of March 1, 2025 to apply for a Postdoctoral Fellowship. If you are beyond the six year limit, you may be eligible for either the CDA or LSRMP programs – see those RFPs for details.
The Fellow must spend a minimum of 80 percent of his/her time in research without major patient care, teaching, or administrative responsibilities except as such responsibilities relate directly to a pre-clinical or clinical lymphoma research project.
Each Postdoctoral Fellowship grant applicant should have a primary sponsor that is not designated as primary sponsor for another Lymphoma Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship applicant in the same cycle. The primary sponsor should be in a faculty role (preferably senior faculty) in the lab (for basic or translational projects) or department (for clinical projects) where the applicant will be performing the research for their Postdoctoral Fellowship project. If there are multiple Fellowship applicants with the same primary sponsor, the Foundation will request that the sponsor designate which application to accept for review.
Please note that a Fellowship applicant may have a primary sponsor who has served as sponsor for a Fellowship applicant in a past cycle (even if that applicant is currently an active Fellowship grantee). A Fellowship applicant may also have a primary sponsor who is serving as primary sponsor for a CDA and/or LSRMP applicant in the current cycle.
In 2025, the Lymphoma Research Foundation will be funding a minimum of one Fellowship Grant with a project that focuses exclusively on follicular lymphomas. This project may focus on clinical, bench, or translational research as long as it studies follicular lymphomas. Projects focused on transformed follicular lymphoma are also eligible for this funding.
The Foundation will also be funding a minimum of one fellowship grant awarded to an applicant that self-identifies as from an underrepresented group in the lymphoma and CLL research fields. Please see the RFP for full details on eligibility.
This award is offered in addition to funding already reserved for Fellowship Grants; applicants who are eligible for special initiative funding will also be considered for Fellowship Grants funded through other sources.
The Lymphoma Scientific Research Mentoring Program (LSRMP) combines the existing LCRMP curriculum and grant structure with an additional cohort for MD and PhD early career researchers who are preparing for careers focused on laboratory and/or translational research. Participants in both tracks will attend the LSRMP Workshop and follow up programs, which will feature both curricula tailored specifically to their chosen research track and collaborative opportunities for laboratory and clinical researchers to work together and learn from each other.
Each LSRMP track has its own application in Proposal Central. Applicants should choose the track most appropriate for their application and apply there – applicants may not apply to both tracks in the same application cycle. On the title page of the Proposal Central application, applicants may indicate if they are willing to be considered in either track based on the review committee’s assessment. Please note that applicant eligibility varies between tracks and applicants can only be moved between tracks if they meet both tracks’ eligibility criteria.
Non-clinicians (postdoctoral fellows and PhD junior faculty) are only eligible to apply to the laboratory/translational track. MD junior faculty and clinical fellows may apply to either track as long as they meet the eligibility criteria; however please keep in mind that applicants will be assessed on the appropriateness of their proposed project and Career Development Plan to the track they have chosen.
Please review the full criteria for each track located in the RFP, particularly “Research Objectives and Evaluative Factors” as well as the “Applicant Eligibility” section for each track. Questions about a project’s suitability for either track should be directed to researchgrants@lymphoma.org well in advance of the deadline.
Beginning in 2023, the Lymphoma Research Foundation is giving Fellowship and CDA applicants the opportunity to indicate they would be willing for their application to also be considered for the LSRMP. However, priority review will always be given to applicants who apply to the LSRMP directly. Fellowship and CDA applicants who check the LSRMP box are not guaranteed that their application will be reviewed by the LSRMP committee, they are giving permission for their application to be considered by the LSRMP committee if the review committee determines they are an appropriate candidate.
The Foundation recommends that applicants with a strong interest in attending the LSRMP submit an application through one of the LSRMP tracks in order to ensure their application is reviewed for a place in the program.
For all LSRMP eligibility requirements, the applicant must have met any minimum limits and not exceeded any maximum limits by March 1, 2025. For example, clinical fellows must have at least two years’ (24 months) experience as a fellow by March 1, 2025. Applicants should review the RFP for eligibility for their chosen track as requirements vary depending on track and applicant job title.
Applicants who are unsure whether they meet the eligibility requirements for either track are welcome to email researchgrants@lymphoma.org for assistance well in advance of the deadline.
Selected applicants must be able to attend and participate in all parts of the program, including the week long workshop (usually in early March), follow up meetings in the two years following their workshop, and Lymphoma Research Foundation required communication, reporting, and evaluation. Refer to the RFP for specific workshop dates and the estimated dates for follow up meetings.
Please note where in person programming is currently indicated, the Foundation will monitor the recommendations from local and federal health officials and implement alternate plans as necessary.
No, Mentors are expected to provide support and guidance to the Applicant while they are at their home institution and assist with the execution of the Applicant’s research project. They will not be asked to attend the March workshop or follow up programs.
An institution could have both a clinical track and a laboratory track participant, however, if there are multiple applicants from one institution in the same track, the review committee may opt to select only one applicant per institution in order to ensure as broad a range of institutional diversity as possible.
Please see the cover sheet and instructions for the Research Proposal in the RFP, which note where you should address any anticipated changes of rank or institution, and its estimated impact on your research proposal.
Yes. Applicants who have completed ASH’s CRTI program, the EHA-ASH TRTH program or another mentorship program may apply for the LSRMP. However, you may not participate in another competitively applied for mentorship during the active period of the LSRMP (March 2025 through October 2027).
For 2025, in addition to the Rai Scholar, one Scholar Award will be given to an applicant with a project focused exclusively on mantle cell lymphoma. Clinical and laboratory/translational track applicants are eligible for this award. This award is offered in addition to funding already reserved for the LSRMP; applicants who are eligible for special initiative funding will also be considered for LSRMP Awards funded through other sources.
The Lymphoma Research Foundation will be funding a minimum of one Scholar in the 2025 cycle for a research project focused exclusively on chronic lymphocytic leukemia/small lymphocytic lymphoma. Clinical and laboratory/translational track applicants are eligible for this award. This award is offered in addition to funding already reserved for the LSRMP; applicants who are eligible for the Rai Scholar Award will also be considered for LSRMP Awards funded through other sources.