• This RFP will involve a two stage process. The first stage of the LOI form is open to anyone with the required credentials and institutional affiliation. We will review the LOI forms using an internal panel. We will then shortlist the applicants who submitted the strongest LOIs to complete a full proposal.

• During the second stage, invited applicants will complete a full proposal, which will be reviewed internally and externally. The external review will be double blind - reviewers should not know the identity of the applicants.

• Based on the reviews from the second stage, we will rank proposals and select the awardees through a partially randomized process.

• All Proposals must be submitted in English.

• Grants can only be awarded to a recognized Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) medical schools, colleges, universities, or not-for-profit research organizations and, to the extent permissible pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, to similar organizations located within or outside the United States even if such organization are not recognized as Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) organizations (collectively referred to as “Applicant Institution”). Applications will be considered from any country except for those on the US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list.

• All proposals will be screened against our financial compliance criteria. We may require applicants to submit more information if needed. If an extended screening is required, then the review and processing timeline for that proposal may be extended.

• The Principal Investigator should be a clinical, applied, or basic science researcher at the Applicant Institution with a MD, PhD, or an equivalent degree.

• The research should be focused on the discovery or development of tools and interventions to help expand the walls of people’s Perception Box, to measure the effectiveness of these tools and interventions and to track the effects of these on the minds, behaviors, and brains of subjects. 

• This RFP is intended for scientific research related to humans. Projects that include philosophical enquiry, mathematical models, laboratory animals, or in vitro experiments will be expected to provide suitable justification for a grant award. 

• All finalist Applicants will be expected to pre-register their proposals and to provide a plan to disseminate their methods, data, and code, according to the FAIR principles.

• Applicants need to complete a LOI on our online portal by the deadline.

• To make use of the double-blind peer review mechanism, the Project Description section should exclude any information about the identity, institutional affiliation, and country of the PIs. This only applies to the Full Proposal.

• The Full Proposal should briefly address whether the PI has already, or is planning to, obtain permission from the relevant regulatory organizations (e.g., IRB, IACUC, DEA) regarding work with human subjects, laboratory animals, and/or controlled substances.   Such approvals can be granted after the proposal submission deadline, but no grant funding will be released until such permissions have been obtained. 

• Applicants can make more than one submission with the proviso that TBD may decide to only proceed with one. In that case, we may consult with the Applicant, or we may decide internally which one to prioritize. Researchers may also collaborate with teams on more than one proposal providing that does not lead to a conflict of interest.

• Applicants from last year who were not selected may submit their applications again providing they can satisfy the criteria of this round.

Full proposals will generally be reviewed by three external, paid reviewers not associated with TBD. Reviewers will only see the Project Description section, (but not any identifying information) which will be scored according to the following criteria:

1. Relevance – Does the proposal directly address the RFP, that is, how can the borders of Perception Box be shrunk or expanded using specific tools or interventions? How can their effectiveness be measured in terms of quantifiable outcomes? Could the resultant changes be tracked in the brain?

2. Approach – Given the state of the art and resources as described in the proposal, how likely is the proposal to achieve its stated goals? That is, how realistic are its goals? Are the goals too ambitious to be accomplished with the funds provided in three years? 

3. Impact – What impact could this research have on mental or physical health for either patients or neurotypicals? Will it be transformative? Could this method be applicable to a large number of people in diverse community settings over the next 5-10 years?

Each criterion should be scored using the below scoring scale: 

• 4 or Outstanding (extremely strong with negligible weaknesses)

• 3 or Good (strong with only minor weaknesses)

• 2 or Satisfactory (some strengths but with some moderate weaknesses)

• 1 or Unsatisfactory (very few strengths and numerous major weaknesses)

We will contract out external paid reviewers with expertise in the field. We aim to source reviewers globally with a geographic distribution that reflects that of the applications being reviewed.

• We will use a modified lottery process, which has previously been described as a practical mechanism to offset systematic bias in the proposal selection process. All full proposals will undergo external review, but we find that the highest scores are often awarded to incremental proposals that shy away from ambitious or risky ideas. 

• To address this bias, we will select proposals randomly from a small subset of the proposals that undergo external review. We can therefore encourage applicants to propose ambitious ideas because an ambitious but rigorous proposal would be just as likely to receive funding as any other.

• Sep 5, 2023: LOI opens.

• Sep 11, 2023 (0800 PDT): LOI Guidance Webinar, open to all.

• Oct 9, 2023 (2359 PDT): LOI closes.

• Nov 27, 2023: Selected LOIs are announced.

• Dec 4, 2023 (0800 PST): Save the date for Full Application Guidance Webinar.

• Feb 5 (2359 PST): Deadline for submitting Full Proposals.

• Jun, 2024: Funding decision announced.