Find answers to common questions about the Emerging Leader Award below. Please review these FAQs and the program overview prior to submitting your application.
The main criteria are independence in both research direction and financial matters (hiring, applying for funding, etc.). The specific job titles and details may be country- and institution-dependent. For institutions with a tenure system, we would consider tenure-track positions to be eligible (research-track positions would not be eligible). For those institutions with no tenure system, you should have your own dedicated lab space (exceptions are possible for physician-scientists running clinical trials), be able to apply for and manage your own grants, and hire your own staff. Your position should not require a mentor, other than a department chair or senior group leader.
Tenure is not part of the award’s eligibility criteria. It neither qualifies nor disqualifies you.
No, you must have started your independent position between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2023, according to your official hire date. We do consider cases of extended leave, such as family leave or military service, for those who started their lab prior to January 1, 2018. This is determined on a case-by-case basis and should be described in your biosketch for consideration.
No, the clock starts once your independent position begins.
There is not a specific dollar threshold, because we consider the economic context of your location. In the United States, your external funding sources should be at least at the level of one R01. You should have sufficient funding to sustain the needs of your lab activities. You do not need an R01 specifically.
Institutional start-up funds that were provided as part of your hiring package do not count, but ongoing institutional support or other competitive institutional grants may count. Private foundation grants do count, as do grants from other government agencies.
We are not able to answer this question on an individual basis. We ask that you review the guidelines and all the information we’ve provided, and decide with your grants office whether you are qualified based on the descriptions of our criteria. If you believe that you are, please submit your LOI.
The funding should be active through at least June 2027.
No, funds that you list must be committed at the time of submission. Pending grants that have a funding commitment but for which the start date has not yet occurred may be included.
This is highly dependent on the lab and project, but it could be anything from a new cancer type to a new technology or just something you’ve been thinking about that you haven’t had the resources to pursue. The idea is that the project should not be the logical next step of your prior work. Instead, this award is intended to open up a new avenue of research. It is acceptable to have some preliminary data on the topic, or even some small funding sources or initial publications, as long as it is clear that the new topic is distinct from your lab’s main body of work.
There should be enough data, either your own or in the literature, to support your hypothesis and make the four-year project feasible in your lab.
The Emerging Leader Award is an individual award, so it does not allow co-investigators. It does allow minor collaborators for cases where you need shared samples or technology from a colleague. However, the proposal must be yours and only yours.
These topics are not explicitly excluded, but they tend to fall outside the scope of our mission and expertise.
Yes, as long as there is a clear hypothesis.
Successful projects tend not to be narrow or incremental, but instead ask questions with broad implications for cancer research and patients. We fund projects in basic, translational, and clinical science. Basic science projects should have a clear line of sight to cancer relevance.
Yes, the purpose of the anonymized review is to evaluate the project’s fit without the influence of identity. You may still describe your published or unpublished work, but you cannot mention the authors’ names or citations (including journal name or year).
You should not directly identify yourself, your institution, or your collaborators by name or cite your publications in the body of the letter of intent or statement of project distinction, because we assess the quality of the project in a blinded manner. After this initial review step, we unblind and do consider applicants’ track records and productivity.
More awards will be given in this round of the Emerging Leader Award (2027) than in previous years.
The Mark Foundation does not take an ownership stake in intellectual property that comes from the funded project. Our revenue-share terms ensure that if your institution receives revenue from the commercialization of your project, a portion is shared with the Mark Foundation and redeployed as additional grant funds in proportion to our funding contribution. The precise terms will be shared once a project is approved for funding.
