The most common structural reasons for eliminating LoIs are

• team members have very similar expertise, all within the traditional life sciences
• the team is clearly aiming to continue an ongoing collaboration (this includes projects with former mentors)
• the team has two members working at the same institution.

Scientific reasons for elimination are given in the Guidelines, point 2. HFSPO does not fund:

• Projects of a purely applied nature. For example,
  • projects of a primarily clinical and pharmaceutical nature, unless they allow new insights into fundamental biological mechanisms of disease;
  • projects aimed at developing methods of diagnosis or treatment, including the search for potential drug targets or advanced trials of drugs under development;
  • applied research in engineering, biotechnology, or nanotechnology, that does not address a fundamental biological problem;
  • projects directly concerned with agricultural or forestry problems such as crop yield or breeding and environmental problems such as pollution.
• Research aimed at developing novel methods or the study of analogs or models of biological activity unless these methods allow new biological questions to be answered in the context of the aim of the HFSP to fund fundamental research.
• Observational projects or systematic screening approaches.
• Large-scale data collection as such, unless there is a convincing rationale for the collection and detailed methodology for the data analysis; this includes the systematic multi-species-omic analyses of populations or ecosystems, which do not address a fundamental biological question of general interest. However, studies of the mechanisms of species-species interactions or their co-evolution are eligible.
• Research in for-profit environments (but collaborations are allowed).

We receive very many good or excellent projects that would clearly be financed by other funding sources. As HFSP's mission is to finance new lines of research, many are eliminated at this stage as

• they promise potentially important but still incremental progress in a field, and not an extension of the frontiers,
• they are too narrow in focus to have the potential of making a major impact beyond the narrow field.
• they are essentially a direct extension of ongoing work, often with approaches being used simultaneously in many laboratories worldwide (lack of novelty) or
• they bring together conventional combinations of scientists from closely related disciplines (all neurobiologists, all structural biologists, all developmental biologists….) and thus fail to meet the criterion of novel combinations of expertise and/or
• the team fails to convince the reviewers of the planned close collaboration of the entire team.

The Principal Applicant should be the person who will coordinate and drive the collaboration. This can be a scientist at any career stage but one who can keep the group together and oversee the entire project, not just her or his part in it. Committee members are critical when it is apparent that the nominated Principal Applicant is not appropriate. Note that up to the submission of a letter of intent, the team can change both the Principal Applicant and the team members – instructions for doing this are given in the application form.

Reviewers pay particular attention to the proposed interactions between team members, and you should build the strongest team possible making the most of the different backgrounds of the team members. If the basic rules for participation are respected (especially those of interdisciplinarity and internationality), proposals are judged solely on scientific merits. You should avoid adding a partner because of his/her geographical location, scientific discipline, or prestigious name (or that of her/his institution), but select each team member for her/his own expertise and expected specific contribution to the project.

Note that 'add-ons' are easily spotted, for instance adding a theoretician just to make the team look interdisciplinary, with no details of the expected methods, or adding a member from an unusual country, just to assures the intercontinental nature of the team.

By contrast, consider finding team members from other scientific cultures, if they can contribute significantly. HFSP also strongly supports adding a team member from a country where field work is to be performed, if – and only if – this team member is fully integrated into the team, and not just a “field assistant”. In projects involving two team members from the same country, it is essential that the other partners are real contributors and not just providing samples for analysis by the other team members.

Many applicants do not appreciate what HFSP understands by ‘risk’. HFSP means “high risk - high reward” – thus, a bold project that aims very high, at achieving something that may presently seem unlikely but would make a very important major contribution to the field. Still, it is not simply that « It's risky because it may or may not work ». A hand waving « but we hope it will », followed by a few vaguely described experiments, will not convince the reviewers of a full proposal. What is expected is that according to the team's calculations there is a reasonable chance that it will work – there should be a reasonable chance that the project will succeed one or other way. This might involve a discussion of the current limiting parameters of a technique, and the novel methods proposed that might bring improvements. It may also involve suggesting a “plan B” for the case that the risky part will not work. A project, where the first experiment, on which everything else builds, is unlikely to work out, may also require a clear “plan B”.

Different scientific communities have evolved different ways of tackling problems. HFSP expects international interactions, by creating new interfaces, to lead to innovative projects. Successful projects from all-European or N. American teams are rare (on average 1 per year). Such teams have tended to submit conventional projects, better suited to national or regional funding agencies. This will not necessarily be the case in the more diverse Asia-Pacific area which includes important HFSP member countries. Such collaborations will be assessed on their merits for frontier-style innovation.

For HFSP, interdisciplinarity is normally the collaboration of biologists with scientists from disciplines such as chemistry, physics, mathematics, nanoscience, psychology, and engineering. However, as many scientists have already received training in various disciplines, an original, novel proposal from a team of ‘biologists’ may be considered appropriate by the review committee if they are combining very different expertise and scientific approaches. Note that this is a rapidly evolving concept: a novel combination of disciplines or methodologies that allowed a significant breakthrough a few years ago may not be scored highly now if the same combination has become routine in the field. Past examples would be structural biology combined with routine functional studies or confocal imaging applied to developmental biology or cell biology. While the skills of non-biologists were essential to design and implement confocal microscopy and the treatment of images, much of this is now widely available (often commercially). The same applies to bioinformatics particularly in the fields of neurobiology or immunology, where these approaches are now part of the discipline. In these fields it would be expected that a computational component would also involve cutting edge science. More recently, organoids have moved from being a new development to more routine use. In short, the use of 'off the shelf' tools would not be considered by the Review Committee as the mark of a truly innovative project. 

If a team has 5 members or two members in the same country, the review committee will scrutinize interdisciplinarity specifically carefully. Generally, teams with two team members from the same country are discouraged because of HFSP’s aim to promote new collaborations across the world. In the case of two team members from the same country representing different disciplines, they will be considered as 1.5 team members for calculating the amount of the award. Such financial calculations are made only after the scientific review is completed and an award recommended, and will take into account any team member's move occurring after the application submission.

HFSP recognizes that theoreticians such as computational biologists will not have a conventional laboratory and may not lead a research group. The same may apply to researchers very early in their career as independent scientists. As long as they are working in an academic institute, they are eligible as team members. If you have a doubt, please contact the office at grant@hfsp.org explaining the circumstances. In some cases, a letter confirming their independent status can be requested from the department head (also see point 13 below).

By contrast to other funders which may have specific calls for early career and more senior researchers, HFSP Program Calls are open to all, while Early Career Grants are reserved specifically for those teams with exclusively early career researchers. In assessing applications for Program Grants reviewers are instructed to bear in mind the age and research experience of the investigators, and many successful Program Grant teams include younger investigators. As there is no quota for Early Career and Program Grants, the distribution will differ from year to year depending on the relative quality of the applications in the two categories, but generally, the success rates are similar in both schemes, and many “almost early career” teams succeed in the program category.

Each year a number of teams apply for a Research Grant – Early Career, although one member is more than ten years from their PhD (or MD) or more than 5 years from starting an independent group at the time of the submission of the Letter of Intent. HFSP takes periods of  parental leave, compulsory military service or major medical conditions into consideration please see the Guidelines. Such periods need to be included in the applicant’s CV in the application. Apart from these, there can be no special exceptions as we apply the same rules to all applicants. Such teams should apply in the Program Grant competition where they will be just as successful (see the question on differences between both programs). Teams that apply for a Research Grant – Early Career without qualifying for it, are notified, and the applications moved to the Program Grants.

HFSP does not have the means to support all the young scientists who would like to start a laboratory. Our aim is to support researchers that have been selected already by a university or research institution to develop an independent group. However, if you are expecting to move to such a position by October, you may apply for the letter of intent deadline as Principal or co-applicant of a team. If this is the case, you will have to provide a formal confirmation from the head of department of the receiving institute in the beginning of June clarifying that you have accepted the position. Failing this, the Selection Committee will not consider inviting a full proposal.

To apply for a research grant, each team member must be able to determine the course of the HFSP-funded project and have freedom to administer the grant award. In cases of doubt, HFSP reserves the right to obtain written confirmation from the head of department or research environment regarding the freedom to conduct the research independently.

The reason why HFSP aims to support new collaborations is the strong belief that bringing together scientists from different backgrounds, with different tool and mind sets, has high potential to create new breakthrough and innovative thinking. The joint publications are just used as a measure of joint work, irrespective of the publication date, and whether jointly authored publications are from a PhD or post-doc period or from independent scientists.

Thus, while a team of two members who have done their PhD or post-doc in the same lab, sharing the same supervisor and jointly authoring publications, would be formally eligible to apply, there is a high chance that the reviewers will see the publications critically. Independent of publications, they may also see a post-doc done at the same time, in the same lab, as rather clear indication that the scientists have very similar backgrounds, while HFSP aims to support interdisciplinary work, in which each team member brings a different approach and tool set to a project.

This will all, of course,  depend on the number of publications (one or two may be ok, specifically if they are multi-author papers or reviews) and also on the question, whether they are in the same field as the proposed project. Such publications may also be less relevant if 20 years have passed, but seen more critically if 10 or less years have passed.

In the application, teams have to list joint publications, and they can also enter a short explanation why they think these should not be considered.