Happy New Year to all, I wanted to take this opportunity, with my very first blog, to update the SRS members about the latest activities of the Sleep Research Society Foundation.

The mission of the Sleep Research Society Foundation is to the growth and development of the field of sleep and circadian research through education and research funding opportunities. It has supported 50 investigators since 2005, by funding the excellent science of promising early career investigators. You can see all of the great science the Foundation has funded in the past on our website.

Over the past 3 years the Sleep Research Society Foundation has supported only 2-3 new investigators per year, which accounts for only 9% of the applications submitted. We need to better support our future!

The latest request for applications closed December 1, 2017 for the 2018 Career Development Awards. These applications are being reviewed by the dedicated members of the Sleep Research Society Scientific Review Committee chaired by Dr. Ritchie Brown. During this latest round we received sixteen new applications. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could fund half of these projects?

Many of our prior awardees believe that the support of the Sleep Research Society Foundation at this critical stage of their career was an important stepping stone to their success.

If you are interested in learning more about the Foundation and the impact we make in the sleep and circadian research field, please feel free to reach out to me directly.  If you would like to support the mission of the Sleep Research Society Foundation you can do so by making a contribution here.  We also encourage you to provide ideas and input for the development of new programs that you think the Foundation could be supporting.

I look forward to serving you all in the coming year as we strive to expand our support of sleep and circadian research, by reaching our goal of funding up to 10 new awards a year.