A Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards Program, 2027 Cycle: Closed to New Letters of Intent

A Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards Program, 2027 Cycle: Closed to New Letters of Intent

Status: The 2027 letter-of-intent stage for Rally Foundation’s Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards is closed to new applicants. The published cycle continues with a full-application stage for invited LOI applicants, but the official page announces no later round. This entry preserves the rules and timeline of the 2027 round for reference; it is not an open application listing. The later full-application dates do not reopen access to researchers who did not submit an LOI or were not invited to continue.

Program and administration

A Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards Program lets researchers submit through one process for consideration by several childhood-cancer organizations. Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research administers the program and uses ProposalCentral for electronic submissions. The 2027 guidelines name six participating organizations: Rally Foundation, Arms Wide Open Childhood Cancer Foundation, Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer, Kids Join The Fight, Luke Tatsu Johnson Foundation and Mighty Millie Foundation. Funding may come from one or more of the partners, depending on the proposal and award decision.

The shared application is relevant to pediatric cancer investigators who might otherwise need to prepare separate submissions for multiple charitable funders. The program is competitive: the Medical Advisory Board reviews proposals, and the guidelines say award amounts and duration depend on peer-review scores. A listed maximum should therefore be treated as a ceiling, not a promise that every award will be made at that level or for the full requested period.

2027 cycle status and timeline

The official cycle schedule gives these milestones:

Rally’s page and the 2027 guidelines document this cycle. No subsequent application window is announced there. The September LOI deadline is retained as the page’s deadline because it is the actual entry deadline for a new applicant to this round. The later full-application deadline applies only to invitees whose LOIs advanced. It should not be mistaken for a route to submit a new proposal.

The 2027 cycle is thus closed for new letters of intent, even though the published calendar continues through review, award notification and the start of funded projects. A prospective applicant who did not enter through the LOI stage should wait for Rally to publish another cycle and confirm its new rules and dates. The published 2027 material does not establish when or whether a following round will open.

Award categories and funding limits

The program lists four award types. Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grants provide up to $50,000 per year for one or two years. Fellows in their final fellowship year may request only one year and can apply as a young investigator in a later cycle. The guidelines encourage fellow applications and reserve a portion of available funds for them, subject to scores.

Independent Investigator Grants provide up to $50,000 per year for one or two years. Applicants identify as a Young Investigator or Independent Investigator on the application. Rally defines a Young Investigator as no more than five years past fellowship and an Independent Investigator as more than five years past fellowship. The organizations also express an interest in supporting Young Investigators, with a portion of funds reserved contingent on scores.

Consortium Grants provide up to $100,000 per year for one or two years. A consortium must include at least three institutions, each with a distinct contribution to the joint research project. Rally describes the lead institution as the one housing the principal investigator. The number of sites alone is not enough: each partner’s role should be clear in the proposal.

Outside the Box Grants provide $50,000 for one year. This award has its own research priorities, separate from the shared priority list below, so the specific Outside the Box guidelines govern fit. At the end of an award, researchers may seek further support in a future cycle through a Fellow, Independent Investigator or Consortium application as appropriate; this does not guarantee a later award.

Not every application receives the full amount requested, and a request for two years may receive only one year. The Collaborative does not pay indirect costs. Its guidelines also exclude construction, renovation or maintenance of buildings or laboratories, land purchases, student tuition, specified institutional recharges and human embryonic stem cell research. Budgets should reflect direct project costs the funders permit.

Who was eligible

For the Fellow Grant, the applicant had to be a postdoctoral or clinical research fellow conducting pediatric cancer research. Fellows needed at least an M.D., D.O., Pharm.D. or Ph.D. and had to be conducting research after the first year of fellowship. A primary scientific mentor was expected to guide the proposal and provide a support letter. Applicants in their final fellowship year were limited to one-year support.

For the Independent Investigator category, applicants could be at academic ranks from Instructor to Professor, or research scientists, and had to hold at least one of the listed professional or doctoral degrees. Applicants classified themselves by time since fellowship: up to five years for Young Investigator, more than five for Independent Investigator. The program asks applicants to use their anticipated position at the start of the award period when choosing between a fellow and investigator award.

Consortium teams needed at least three institutions, each bringing a unique contribution, with the lead institution housing the principal investigator. Across these categories, applicants did not need U.S. citizenship or a U.S. institutional affiliation. Hospitals, universities and private laboratories could serve as applicant institutions.

The research focus had to be childhood, adolescent or young-adult cancer, defined in the guidelines as ages 0–14, 15–19 and 20–24, respectively. A proposal had to address at least one of the general priority areas: innovative work that could lead to advanced studies, improved treatment delivery or clinical translation; basic research likely to produce a new discovery; under-studied cancer types; quality of life, survivorship or palliative care; personalized, targeted, alternative or integrative research; or data standardization, collection, storage, analysis and sharing. Proposals without direct pediatric cancer relevance, infrastructure proposals, incomplete submissions and late submissions were not eligible for review.

The 2027 guidelines additionally identify designated funding for acute myeloid leukemia, diffuse midline glioma, neuroblastoma, medulloblastoma, rhabdomyosarcoma, sarcomas and Wilms tumor. All types of childhood cancer could be considered, but applicants in these designated areas could identify that fit clearly. Outside the Box applicants must use that category’s own priority list rather than assume the general list controls.

What the application required

The first submission was an electronic LOI in ProposalCentral. As the LOI window has passed, these details describe the 2027 round and are useful for understanding its process or preparing for a future cycle; they are not instructions for submitting now. The program page directed applicants to log in or register, complete their ProposalCentral profile, open Grant Opportunities, find A Collaborative Pediatric Cancer Research Awards Program and choose the relevant grant type. Rally’s guidelines warn that incomplete or late applications would not be reviewed.

The LOI requested a lay summary of up to 2,000 characters and a separate scientific summary of up to 2,000 characters. The plain-language summary mattered because each participating organization’s board used it to consider the Medical Advisory Board’s recommendations. Applicants also supplied a biosketch and a statement of recently completed, current and pending support covering resources related to their research. Fellow applicants included their primary mentor’s biosketch and support letter.

The LOI narrative was organized around Specific Aims, Rationale and Approach, Innovation, and Potential for Translational Application and Future Patient Benefit. The Fellow Grant guidelines also requested an applicant career plan in a half page. The LOI narrative had a two-page limit, with the career plan separately limited to a half page, and relevant references were limited to one page. Both the applicant and the institution’s signing official had to e-sign in ProposalCentral before the deadline. The instructions specified Arial at 11 points, margins of at least half an inch and adherence to each page and character limit; the portal counts spaces in character limits. These are administrative requirements, so an otherwise strong proposal could be rejected for a format or signature problem.

Only invited LOI applicants could proceed to the full application. The full application included updated summaries and other support, applicable human-subjects and vertebrate-animal documentation, a budget and direct-cost justification, biosketches, a research plan, references, support letters and both e-signatures. The guidelines requested IRB approval or evidence of pending submission for relevant human-subjects work, and IACUC approval or evidence of pending protocols when vertebrate animals were involved. The budget was to show project costs by budget period, within the applicable award ceiling and without indirect costs. The direct-cost justification was limited to 5,000 characters.

The research plan was limited to seven pages in the Fellow Grant guidelines. It covered Specific Aims and a Research Strategy addressing Significance, Innovation, Experimental Approach and Research Design, with a career plan also requested for fellows. It needed to explain the work, its importance, prior progress, methods, data collection and analysis, and a tentative timetable. Reviewers were instructed to weigh feasibility over the projected period and consider potential difficulties and limitations. The mentor and department head, along with relevant collaborators or consultants, were among the sources of support letters identified by the guidelines. Other award categories have their own linked guideline documents, so applicants should not assume every category has identical narrative requirements.

Review and post-award responsibilities

The research proposal had to connect directly to pediatric cancer and a stated program priority. A persuasive application would make that relationship specific, explain what the work could change or clarify, and match its aims to a feasible schedule and budget. The official materials describe review through Rally’s Medical Advisory Board and emphasize feasibility. They do not guarantee that an eligible project will receive an award.

For funded projects, the guidelines require progress and financial reporting. Before later installments are released, the principal investigator submits an interim report covering aims, studies and results, significance, plans and a lay summary, along with a statement about the grant’s value to the research and a financial report. A final progress report and financial report are due within sixty days after the award period ends. Recipients must acknowledge the supporting organization in peer-reviewed publications and presentations. Any unused funds must be returned unless a no-cost extension has been approved; requests are considered individually and should be submitted at least ten days before the grant period ends.

These are obligations for awardees, not additional application steps for the closed LOI. A past recipient seeking continued funding should consult the applicable renewal provisions: the guidelines state that one-year grantees may seek a second year through a renewal that bypasses the LOI, subject to peer review. After two consecutive years of support for a specific project, a new LOI is required for further funding.

Official links

• Rally Foundation program page and cycle calendar
• ProposalCentral application portal
• 2027 Postdoctoral and Clinical Research Fellow Grant guidelines
• 2027 Independent Investigator Grant guidelines

The dates, category limits, eligibility rules and submission requirements in this archive are drawn from Rally Foundation’s program page and published 2027 grant guidelines. Check Rally’s official page for any later announcement before relying on this entry for future funding decisions.