Pilot Research Award in Liver Diseases

Application Deadline
Award Amount
$50,000
Award Term
One Year
Award Type
Project-Based
Clinical / Translational / Outcomes Research
Basic Science Research
Career Level
Junior Faculty
Mid-Career Faculty

View the 2025 request for applications [PDF]. 

Overview

The purpose of this award is to support highly innovative research ideas that have a clear potential to produce high-impact results, but that have little or no preliminary data to successfully compete for funding from other sources. This award is not intended to support ongoing research in the applicant’s laboratory, but rather support new ideas or approaches that have not previously been studied.

Clinical/Translational/Outcomes and Basic Science projects will be evaluated independently, with separate funding reserved for each category.

Notice of Special Interest

Additional dedicated funding to advance research activities in autoimmune hepatitis is available for the 2025 Awards cycle. Applications in autoimmune hepatitis are encouraged in all early to mid-career research award categories and the Pilot and Autoimmune Exploratory Research Award categories.

  • Eligibility
  • Award Details
  • Selection Criteria
  • How to Apply
  • Application Resources
  • CMS Open Payments Disclaimer

Eligibility

In order to be eligible for this award, the applicant must adhere to the following guidelines:

  1. The applicant must:
    • Have a faculty appointment at or below the rank of Associate Professor. Junior Faculty must be at least three years from their first appointment at the start date of the award (faculty start date must be July 1, 2021 or earlier). 
    • Be a member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) at the time of award application and maintain active membership for the duration of the award period.
    • Be able to devote at least 20% effort to the research project on which this application is based
    • Be sponsored by a public or private non-profit institution accredited in the United States, Canada or Mexico engaged in health care and health-related research. Individuals employed at the NIH, FDA, and CDC are not eligible to apply.
    • If the applicant is at the rank of Assistant Professor, they must have a mentor or co-mentor who is an AASLD member in good standing at the time of application and for the duration of the award period. Mentors are not required for Associate Professor level applicants or equivalent.
    • Not hold federal funding (e.g., U, P, R, K, VA Merit, VA CDA) unless they are able to justify the following in their application:
      • The project is truly completely distinct and non-overlapping from existing funding.
      • The proposed work cannot be completed using existing funds.
  2. The proposed project must: 
    • Not be an established project with alternate funding and must be clearly different than existing research portfolio of the PI.
    • Be hypothesis based.
    • Include only 1-2 aims that can be completed within the one-year award term.
    • If the project is Clinical/Translational/Outcomes Research, intervention must involve a direct clinical interaction with patients (clinical), patient clinical data (outcomes), or patient samples (translational). No clinical interaction is required for Basic Research proposals.
    • Be conducted at the sponsoring institution within the United States, Canada, or Mexico.
  3. Application limits:
    • There is no restriction on the number of applicants an institution can sponsor each cycle, but only one applicant may be funded per distinct department within each institution in this award category.
    • Applicants may only apply for one AASLD Foundation award per calendar year.   

QUESTIONS

Questions? Contact awards@aasld.org.

Return to Current Funding Opportunities

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The 2025 Pilot Research Award in Liver Diseases program is made possible through unrestricted donations from AASLD and donors to the AASLD Foundation.