The WMFC, in partnership with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of Canada (LLSC), is pleased to announce the availability of an Operating Grant for research into WM.
An Operating Grant is a two-year grant designed to provide funding to research that may ultimately lead to a significant change in the understanding, diagnosis, or treatment of blood cancer — in our case, specifically for WM.
All the details are available at the LLSC website on Operating Grants, but the highlights of such an award are as follows:
- Available to researchers at Canadian institutions
- Funding is for up to $100,000 per year for two years
- An annual progress report, in layman’s terms, is expected from the researcher
What’s in it for the WMFC?
This is an excellent partnership for the WMFC.
- Under this agreement, our research dollars are doubled — for our WM Operating Grant, we will pay half of the $100,000 per year, and the LLSC will pay the other half
- We gain the benefit that all applications must go through the LLSC’s Operating Grant Scientific Review Panel. This is basic scientific expertise that the WMFC, at our size, cannot hope to replicate
- Similarly, the legal contract and project management for any successful application will be handled by the LLSC. Again, at the size of the WMFC, we would not be able to handle this
- We have specified that any successful applicant for the WM operating grant must align with the IWMF-LLS Strategic Research Roadmap
- The WMFC has the final say on whether (or not) we will fund any specific application
- This boosts the amount of WM research being done in Canada, and improves visibility of WM among Canadian researchers
So this is a win-win-win opportunity for WM in Canada: doubling our research money, aligning with the IWMF Strategic Research Roadmap, and leveraging of a much larger organization’s expertise and project management!