Special Features

In addition to its focus on testing low-cost, effective protocols, this program has five distinguishing features:

• Funding for all strong proposals. All applications that meet the standard criteria for well-designed clinical trials will be funded.

• Open to practitioners. The Foundation encourages applications from practitioners who have a strong idea but no experience in organizing clinical trials.

• Scale of Funding. Grant proposals may be of any size, from small seed proposals to large-scale, multi-institution research efforts. Upon review of an initial submission (see How to Apply sections for instructions), the Foundation will work with you to determine the size grant that makes sense for the proposed project. Successful seed grants can be a first step to a larger grant.

• Respect for the past. While much research funding is devoted to testing new therapies, the Foundation welcomes well-designed studies that evaluate protocols used by earlier generations of veterinarians and are less costly than current “best option” recommendations.

• Focus on developing clinical options for private practitioner. Although the Foundation hopes that the results of these trials will be useful to shelter and subsidized programs, our focus is on the primary care veterinarian who must be able to operate profitably.