Pilot Program

Purpose: To support high quality pilot studies that have high potential to lead to extramurally funded research to be conducted at the UC Davis Imaging Research Center.

Eligibility: UC Davis faculty in all series that qualify for principal investigator status on extramural grant applications. Potential investigators who do not meet this qualification may request an exception from the pilot program committee.

Scope: Investigators can request up to 30 hours of magnet time at the Imaging Research Center for pilot research projects for which other support is not available. The award of scanner time will be for a period of one year following the date of approval.

Application: The application should include the following:
1) Pilot Program Application Cover Sheet
2) A Research Plan (no more than 5 pages in length, excluding references) that includes a) Specific Aims, b) Background, c) Preliminary Studies, and d) Research Design and Methods. It is important that the application include sufficiently detailed information about scanning parameters, task design, and analysis of imaging data for the pilot program committee to evaluate the feasibility of the proposal. For designs with complex tasks, please specify the primary contrasts of interest and how specific comparisons will be used to test the experimental hypotheses.
3) For clinical studies there should be a specific discussion of how potential confounds such as differential head movement, differences in anatomy and differences in performance across groups will be addressed in the design of the study.
4) Specify how you expect to use the requested scanning hours. How many hours do you expect to use for protocol development? How many hours do you expect to use to generate preliminary data for each component of your research design?
5) A current, two-page biosketch in NIH format including "other support" for each faculty member participating in the project.

Submission: The above material should be submitted as attachments to an e-mail message to Michele Ono at myono@ucdavis.edu. The attached files should be saved as rich text format (.rtf) or portable document format (.pdf). The committee meets on the third Monday of each month. Please submit your application at least ten working days prior to the committee meeting.