• Any area of Research related to the radiologic sciences is eligible for funding.
• Applications must be consistent with the mission of the Radiology Department, as well as demonstrate feasibility, scientific merit, and potential future fundability.
• Student Applicant must be a full-time medical student at an accredited North American medical school.
• Student Applicant/Faculty Advisor must not be agents of any for-profit, commercial company in the radiologic sciences.
• Student Applicant may not submit more than one research grant application per year.
• Acceptance of an award from another source for the same project is prohibited unless one source provides only salary support and the other source provides only support for non-personnel research expenses.

• All applications must have a Radiology Department faculty member listed as an advisor/co-investigator. The Radiology Department faculty must obtain Institutional Review Board approval or letter of exemption prior to initiating grant work, as necessary.
• The Student Applicant must submit a completed application form via the CommonApp process: Included with the CommonApp application, the following must be uploaded:
  • Proposed research plan. No more than three (3) pages (including any diagrams, tables, figures, charts, photos, etc.) will be accepted. Applications with greater than three (3) pages may be administratively withdrawn. Research plan should be single-spaced, specifically following the outline given with all items addressed:
    • Hypothesis/Aims/Purpose of the Research: Provide a clear, concise summary of the hypothesis or aims of the work proposed and its relationship to your long-term goals.
    • Potential Impact/Significance of Research: Briefly address the potential impact of the research.
    • Previous work done on same or related problems:
      • By other investigators. Briefly summarize important results outlined by others in the same field, evaluating existing knowledge.
      • By applicant (if none, so state). Concisely describe previous work related to the proposed research. Include pilot studies showing the work is feasible.
    • Contemplated method of approach to the problem
    • Description of proposed tests, methods or procedures should be explicit, sufficiently detailed, and well-defined to allow adequate evaluation of the approach to the problem.
    • Clearly describe overall design of the study, including statistical aspects of the approach, the adequacy of controls, and number of observations, as well as how results will be analyzed. Include details of any collaborative arrangements that have been made.
    • Except as provided below, if a proposed research project involves human subjects, the population sampled shall be inclusive of the general population, of relevance to the scientific question posed, without restriction in regard to gender, race, age, and socio-economic status. Proposals that intentionally restrict the population sampled must include a compelling scientific rationale for such research design. Be sure to address this topic. If using subjects, populations, or data, the methods should include documentation of the availability and accessibility of these.
    • Experimental problems: Describe any experimental problems that must be overcome in order to successfully accomplish the goals of this research project.
    • Literature cited: List No more than 5 literature references at the end of the proposed research plan.
  • A budget, outlining research costs must be submitted with the grant submission. The maximum amount of any one grant may not exceed $3,000.
    • A student stipend/salary may not exceed $2,500.
    • Awards for shorter periods of research effort should/will be reduced appropriately.
    • Grant money is primarily ear-marked as stipend, and is not primarily designed to offset other costs, such as imaging time, unless so specified in the budget.
    • Computers/laptops will not be approved through this process. Peripherals and software will be considered by the committee.
    • Posters, intended student travel for meeting presentation, should be included as budget items up to $500.
    • No indirect costs are allowed.
• A Radiology Department Faculty mentor/co-investigator may not supervise more than two research grantees at a time.
• The faculty advisor is responsible for documentation of student hours/ effort. The advisor will guarantee effort is commensurate with the stipend. Failure to monitor, or guarantee compliance with guidelines may lead to inegibility to apply for DRMSSRP grants for a period of two years.
• All Student investigators are required to submit a Final Report to the Research Committee by October 31. The final report should restate the purpose, goal, or hypothesis, and include methods of investigation applied, results, and conclusions. The Final Report should include, or be in the form of, a PowerPoint Poster summarizing the research. In addition, the report should:
  • Indicate any significant deviations you have made from the original research plan and justify these changes. If you did not reach one or more of your initial goals, explain why.
  • Indicate any problems or delays that you have encountered; for example, problems in obtaining protected time to do research, slow patient accrual in the study, etc.
  • Indicate if the results from your studies are being prepared for publication or will be prepared for publication.
  • Indicate if the results from your studies will be used as preliminary data in a grant application to another granting agency.
  • Indicate the clinical significance and future clinical impact of the results of your study.
  • Indicate the strengths and weaknesses of the grant program in which you participated.
  • Indicate the influence or role that the DRMSSRP grant had on your career or will likely have in the future.

The research committee will meet following grant/application review to discuss the grants/applications. The Research Committee will review and score all grant applications based on scientific merit, and subsequently award the grants, according to established scoring methods.

The research committee chairperson will notify all primary and co-investigators of the grants selected by April 30.

Funded faculty members will be encouraged to seek extramural Medical Student Research funding through the Radiologic Society of North America.

• Grants will be evaluated for scientific excellence and relevance. Each committee member will review all grants prior to the meeting. Scoring will be done prior to the meeting. Criteria rating for each subcategory: 1 = excellent, 2 = good, 3 = average, 4 = below average
  • Following a review of each grant application the research committee will score each subcategory: scientific merit score and relevance. Download Scoring Sheet (PDF). The overall grant score will be calculated by multiplying the scientific merit score by 2/3 and the relevance score by 1/3 and adding the two scores together.
• Members of the Research Committee, who serve as an investigator on a grant application, cannot participate in the review or scoring that grant and will leave the room when that grant is discussed. An additional faculty member will be asked to review/score that grant(s).
• After all grants have been scored, the reviewer will rank all grants from first to last prior to the meeting, based upon their scores.
• Each proposal will then be presented briefly and discussed, as necessary.
• After discussion a final signed ballot will then be completed by each member of the review committee in order to provide a final rank. If two grants are tied by the scored ranking at the cutoff for funding, but both viewed as eritorious, additional funding will be sought.