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For decades, RPB grants have provided funding to create new discoveries in vision science. Learn about our current grants, as well as our exceptional grantees.
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Dry eye is a chronic medical condition that develops when the eye's tear film does not lubricate and protect the eye's outer surface.
The RPB International Research Collaborators Award promotes international collaborations through which collaborating researchers in the U.S. and outside the U.S. gain new knowledge and skills. These international collaborations have the potential to accelerate the development of treatments for blinding disorders, positively affecting large populations worldwide for years to come.
Under a reciprocal arrangement, a U.S.-based researcher will be funded to go for a period of time to an institution outside the U.S. to gain new knowledge and/or skills, and deepen collaborative relationships with researchers there that will be conducive to future research collaborations. In turn, the institution outside the U.S. will send a researcher for a period of time to the U.S. institution from which the U.S. researcher came. An extended stay in the other country is expected by each researcher or a member of each researcher’s lab. A fair amount of flexibility in how this expectation can be implemented will be allowed.
The collaboration should provide a synergistic benefit to each researcher and to the culminating project. The submission must spell out specific and cogent objectives to be accomplished by each of the collaborating researchers toward the fulfillment of two broad goals: (1) gaining new knowledge and skills; and (2) strengthening collaborations across international boundaries. Successful candidates will leverage the unique expertise of each researcher, whereby their collaboration creates a work product that is more than the sum of its parts.
The award is open to U.S.-based researchers — MD, PhD, MD/PhD or equivalent doctoral degree — with a primary appointment as an Assistant Professor through full Professor in any department from any institution of higher education in the U.S.
This award is available to researchers from any institution of higher education in the U.S. Only one nomination per department per school will be considered in this grant category.
Applicants must be nominated by their Ophthalmology Department Chair. Please note: applications received without a prior nomination form will not be accepted. Candidates can access the nomination and application forms below.
Each RPB grant has different eligibility criteria, which is detailed on the relevant grant webpage. If you have questions about the eligibility details, please reach out to us; we’re happy to help.
While a few of our RPB individual awards (RPB Medical Student Eye Research Fellowship, RPB Career Development Award, and the RPB Physician-Scientist Award) are restricted to departments that have an RPB Unrestricted or Challenge grant, the majority of our awards are open to researchers at any academic medical center in the U.S.
The reason that the three awards mentioned above are restricted to RPB-supported departments is that our Departmental Grantees undergo an extremely rigorous peer-review process. The environment and leadership at these departments have met our stringent criteria and are appropriate venues for the research being conducted by these early- and mid-career researchers, giving us assurance that they will receive outstanding support and mentorship.
If you are not sure if your department has a Departmental Grant, visit our current grantees here.
No, all of our grants are awarded to researchers or departments of ophthalmology at U.S.-based academic medical centers. The RPB International Researcher Collaborators Award supports collaboration between U.S. and outside-the-U.S. researchers; however, the award is made to the U.S. academic medical center, which can then disperse the funds as needed to support the project collaboration.
For Financial Reports and Progress Reports, please contact Director of Grants Management MariaClaudia Lora-Montana (mlora@rpbusa.org).
For Year-End Reports (photos, research summaries and bibliographies), please contact Jo Casella (jcasella@rpbusa.org).
For more information about all RPB grant requirements, visit our helpful RPB Reports page.
We love to help promote our grantees’ work! Please reach out to Director of External Affairs Diana Friedman (dfriedman@rpbusa.org or 646-892-9565) to share your good news.
Contact us for more details!
MariaClaudia Lora-Montano
Director of Grants Management