The applicant for the grant should hold a full time position at a non-profit research institution and the idea should have plausibility based on data from the applicant’s laboratory.

Other than this we have a few other preferences that we will be happy to waive if the merit of the proposal is compelling:

1. We prefer proposals that have a strong central hypothesis that can be proven or disproven within the tenure of the Grant (a maximum of 18 months) using the experimental methods/​design proposed in the application
2. We are agnostic to where the proposal comes from, but we do prefer proposals that involve multi-institutional OR interdisciplinary collaboration, and we would love to see applications from younger scientists who are just launching their scientific careers (even if you are at a lesser known institution!)

Please do submit your proposal as soon as possible to allow for some time for the reviewers to seek clarification on the contents of your proposal.

Please submit your proposal via email to swamis@​ignitelsf.​in

The subject line of the email should say: ACORN-AMR Proposal 2023, Your Name and Institution.
The proposal (maximum 10 pages) should contain the following sections:

1. A high level SUMMARY of the proposal (150 words or less)
2. Background science in support of this proposal (ideally ONE page)
3. The central hypothesis or idea (ideally half a page)
4. The experimental design to test your hypothesis/​idea; experiments that are definitive in their outcomes and constitute a go/no-go decision point for further work are preferred (ideally ONE page)
5. Possible outcomes and next steps (ONE page)
6. List of References in support of (1) above (ONE page)
7. Six monthly Milestones, and Funding (with breakup) required to be disbursed in six monthly tranches (ONE page). If your project timeline is only 6 months or less, then you can ask for the entire fund release to be disbursed at the start of the project.
8. Name of PI, co-PIs, list of relevant papers published by the PI and Co-PI, address, email ID and mobile phone numbers
9. If funding announcements are made in the last week of March, on what date can you commence work on your proposal
10. Self-certification that this Proposal does not overlap with any other ongoing funded proposals OR proposals submitted to other agencies for funding. Please do list ALL proposals of a similar nature that are funded in your laboratory as well as proposals of a similar nature submitted by you for funding to other agencies

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