What Is a Rally Career Development Award?

Career development awards are important. But why?

Investigators in their first independent faculty appointment are at a critical career stage where they must establish themselves through research, publications and grant funding.

It is important to support the development of independent research by these individuals to move them from mentorship to independence. Career development awards provide the opportunity for investigators to develop independent research by funding a significant portion of their salary to ensure protected research time.

RESEARCH GRANTS

Rally Foundation for Childhood Cancer Research (Rally) helps fund the most promising research initiatives through research grants including the Rally Career Development Award. Invited institutions may nominate one researcher for the Rally Career Development Award.

A Rally research grant is a financial award provided to universities, hospitals and private research institutions to support a specific research project.

Rally grants are awarded based on a competitive dual peer-review process conducted by our Medical Advisory Board, which is made up of leading childhood cancer experts.

The Rally Career Development Award funds $100,000 per year for three years with the hope that the investigator will progress from mentorship to independence by providing the opportunity to develop independent research through protected time.

Rally funds all levels of research, from science at the bench to translational, and includes fellows, young investigators and independent investigators.

RALLY RESEARCH FOCUS 

Rally research grants must address at least one of the following priority areas:

• Innovative approaches to research that could lead to advanced studies or clinical trials.
• Basic science studies that are likely to lead to a new discovery.
• Under-studied cancer types.
• Quality of life, survivorship and palliative care studies.
• Personalized, targeted, alternative or integrative research proposals.
• Data utilization through data standardization, collection, storage, analysis and sharing.

WHY

Because kids with cancer deserve better.

Some childhood cancer treatments have been the same for more than 40 years. With your support, we are changing that. Rally-funded research has led to new and better treatments, and ultimately cures, with fewer harmful side effects.

Between 2006 and 2024, Rally awarded $35 million in childhood cancer research grants funding 597 projects at institutions around the world.

Rally’s next grants will be announced in early April 2025.