Great Ideas Start with You.

So if you have an idea to make SWOG more efficient, our members more prepared, or our trials more rigorous and relevant, now is your chance to make your case to get them funded. The Hope Foundation has a call out for new program proposals, with winning ideas eligible for funding in 2018.

Note: This particular pot of gold isn’t for direct research. Hope has plenty of other grant programs that cover cutting-edge clinical projects of all sizes and types. Rather, the Hope’s board of directors wants to hear about, and potentially pay for, unmet organizational needs.

Prior funded program proposals have included the SWOG Leadership Academy, our three-year mentorship program to prepare promising young investigators for careers in SWOG and/or the National Clinical Trials Network. It launched at the spring meeting in San Francisco. The palliative care symposium and the translational medicine mini-retreat held at the spring meeting were also funded by Hope under this program. The popular and practical online SWOG Grant Writing Workshop was another successful Hope program proposal.

So think big. How can we improve operations or education and training? How can we improve member engagement? How can we increase accrual onto our trials? To be sure, it won’t hurt if your idea supports SWOG’s guiding principles:

• Patients are our absolute highest priority
• We ensure that the best science drives our research
• We embrace and encourage diversity in our patients, membership, and leadership to effectively solve problems in cancer
• We demand integrity, accountability, and ethical behavior in our research
• We foster and mentor young investigators

Proposals are due by August 18. Submission is relatively fast and easy. Just a few fields to fill out, along with a brief project description of need, approach, and benefits – no more than 2,500 characters (not words).

Please check out Hope’s 2018 Program Proposal Form here. And apply! You may have the next big idea we need.