International Research Grants Program

The Parkinson's Disease Foundation (PDF) annually awards grants and fellowships with a budget of $700,000. Any single award will not exceed $50,000. Investigators who receive funding from PDF may not receive funding for other projects supported by PDF during the same year, nor receive funding from other foundations or institutions for the same project during that year.

The IRGP supports projects of the highest scientific caliber from around the world that:

• are directly relevant to studying the causes of and a cure for Parkinson's disease;
• are complementary to, not duplicative of, other research in the field;
• have the potential to lead to research proposals to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other sources of government support.

Basic, translational and clinical research proposals are eligible for support. Candidates must have completed a PhD or MD and be qualified to serve as a Principal Investigator of the project. Proposals will be peer-reviewed and competitively scored based upon the quality of the research proposal and its pertinence to Parkinson's disease. Preference will be given to scientists who are at an early stage in their professional careers.

No portion of a grant under these programs may be applied to institutional overhead, or to travel that is not directly related to the purposes of the grant study. Funding in this program is limited to one year at a time. Should a grant recipient wish to request funding for a second year for the same project (the maximum for any one research project), he/she must submit a progress report for the first year no later than the deadline for the application for the next award year (this year, Friday, February 1, 2008). This would be considered as a competing application with all other applications for that cycle.

Deadline and Starting Date

The deadline for receipt of grant applications has now passed. Funding will be effective July 1, 2008, concluding June 30, 2009. In the event funding is recommended and approved for the applicant, please be advised that any and all equipment budgeted in the proposal and purchased with funds provided by the PDF Grant Program will be the property of the sponsoring institution and will remain there in the event the investigator should leave said institution.

We require that all published works state that the research is supported by the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. PDF support must also be credited in all public addresses, PowerPoint presentations, scientific posters and other public venues.

Application Guidelines

These guidelines apply to the following:

• International Research Grants Program
• Postdoctoral Research Fellowships
• Postdoctoral Fellowships for Neurologists

The application package includes the following:

• The completed PDF application form, including the signature of the applicant and the relevant institutional authority (NOTE: if you do not have access to a scanner, kindly submit the signature page via 'snail mail' - your electronic version will not be processed without a signature);
• No more than 4,000 words (roughly the equivalent of 8 single-spaced pages with a maximum of 15 characters per inch) consisting of the following sections (complying with the recommendations for maximum length of each section noted in parenthesis):
  1. Background of proposed study (500 words)
  2. Specific aims (250 words)
  3. Details of proposed experiment, including methods (1,500 words)
  4. Statement describing relevance of proposed studies (250 words)
  5. Budget and justification (500 words)
  6. Curriculum vitae (NIH format - 1,000 words)
  7. All references must be included within the 4,000 words. Please do not include appendices.

For more information contact Valerie Holt at vholt@pdf.org