Goals of the Pilot Project Program

The mission of the Pilot Project program is to allow investigators to generate data in support of new hypotheses, collaborations, and areas of research, with the goal of converting these preliminary data into peer reviewed funding. Pilot funding advances the Center by supporting high-risk high-return research, seeding new research collaborations, encouraging investigators not affiliated with the Center to incorporate environmental health into their research efforts, and supporting junior faculty with an interest in environmental health research. Investigators new to the field of environmental health are encouraged to collaborate with or use Center members as consultants when submitting P ilot grants. In this way, P ilot studies lea d to new collaborations within the Center. In addition, since these grants are often one of the first sources of research funding for junior faculty and new clinical researchers, they are a powerful incentives to attracting these investigators to environmental health research.