Community & Public Health Track

This Request For Proposals (RFP) is offered with support from:

Focus areas in scope

This RFP funds work focused on community and public health questions related to the following areas:

• Access to care and barriers to timely treatment.
• Caregiving burden and care navigation.
• Affordability, utilization, and persistence.
• The value of innovation in ways that matter to policy, reimbursement, delivery models, and public-health decision-making.
• Community and public-health disparities in uptake, outcomes, or access.
• Evidence translation for decision-makers, including work that helps policy, payer, provider, or advocacy audiences interpret evidence more clearly.

If your work is centered on a specific disease-state science question, it likely belongs in the Disease-State Track rather than this one. This track is for cross-cutting community, access, caregiving, value, and public-health questions that shape how care is experienced, delivered, financed, or understood.

Too much important work on access, affordability, caregiving burden, and the downstream value of innovation never reaches the rooms where coverage, policy, and care-delivery decisions get made. Evidence that stays trapped in internal analysis does not change reimbursement, delivery design, or public-health action.

The Science Center and Genentech created this program to close that gap. The Community & Public Health Track funds focused, decision-useful scholarship and supports the work required to move that scholarship into publication and external dissemination.

Awards are up to $25,000 for a project period of up to 12 months. Funded teams must produce at least one manuscript submission and at least one conference, policy, or comparable external dissemination submission during the award period.

Program purpose

This Request for Proposals supports applied scholarship on access to care, caregiving, affordability, utilization, outcomes, and the value of innovation. Competitive proposals will answer a focused question, use a rigorous evidence-based method, show credible access to the required inputs, and produce findings that can inform policy, reimbursement, care delivery, or public-health action.

This is not exploratory funding for loosely formed ideas. It is support for research that is ready to execute, ready to withstand external scrutiny, and ready to be translated into outputs that matter to policymakers, payers, health-system leaders, public-health stakeholders, and advocacy audiences.

Who this is for

This program is especially well suited to researchers working on applied questions in health services, health economics, health policy, public health, and related fields, including:

• Postdoctoral researchers.
• Junior faculty.
• Clinician-researchers.
• Health-services researchers.
• Health economists.
• Public-health and health-policy researchers.
• Senior research staff or cross-disciplinary teams housed at eligible institutions.

Career stage alone is not a scoring advantage. The strongest applications will come from teams that already have a defined question, a feasible method, the right expertise, and a realistic path to data, analysis, writing, and submission within 12 months.

What this program is not for

This program will not fund:

• Exploratory concepts without a focused question or executable method.
• Projects without credible, confirmable access to the required data or inputs.
• Product development, commercial market research, or sales- and marketing-oriented analysis.
• Clinical trials or projects requiring patient-care costs.
• Basic or bench science without a clear link to access, caregiving, outcomes, value, or public-health decision-making.
• Travel-only requests.
• Advocacy or lobbying activities.
• Opinion pieces, editorials, or commentaries without an underlying analytic body of work.
• Projects without a realistic 12-month path to external dissemination.

1. Request for Proposals

The Genentech Scholars Program — Community & Public Health Track supports publication-ready and presentation-ready scholarship on access to care, caregiving, and the value of innovation. The goal is to fund rigorous, decision-useful work that can move beyond internal analysis and into the journals, conferences, and policy-facing forums where real healthcare decisions are shaped.

Proposals should address a focused community or public-health question, use a rigorous evidence-based approach, and show a clear path to external dissemination. Strong applications will connect the work to practical implications for policy, reimbursement, delivery-system design, affordability, public-health action, or healthcare decision-making.

2. Program objectives

Funded projects should:

• Answer a focused question related to access, caregiving, affordability, utilization, outcomes, or the value of innovation.
• Use a rigorous and appropriate evidence-based method.
• Show credible, timely access to the required data, literature base, stakeholder inputs, or analytic resources.
• Produce findings with clear relevance to policy, reimbursement, delivery-system decisions, or public-health action.
• Reach external audiences through at least one manuscript submission and at least one conference, policy, or comparable dissemination submission during the award period.

3. Eligibility

3.1 Eligible applicants

Applications are welcome from faculty, postdoctoral researchers, clinician-researchers, and senior research staff based at accredited U.S. academic institutions, academic medical centers, research organizations, schools of public health, or nonprofit entities with the capacity to administer sponsored research funds. Multi-institutional teams are eligible when one qualified institution serves as the lead applicant and fiscal agent.

Researchers working in startup, company, or applied settings may participate when proposed work is genuine scholarship rather than product development, market research, or commercial promotion. Independent consultants or researchers without an eligible institutional affiliation are not eligible.

3.2 Applicant fit

This program is built for applicants who are ready to execute. The strongest proposals will come from teams that already have a defined question, a feasible method, the right expertise, and a realistic path to the data, analysis, and outputs required to complete the work during the award period.

Applications will be judged on fit, rigor, feasibility, and dissemination readiness rather than title or career stage.

3.3 Principal Investigator requirements

The Principal Investigator must hold a terminal degree such as a PhD, MD, JD, DrPH, or equivalent, or must demonstrate comparable professional research experience. The Principal Investigator should also show a record of peer-reviewed publication or equivalent scholarly output sufficient to support successful completion and dissemination of the proposed work.

3.4 Conflict-of-interest disclosure

All key personnel must disclose any financial relationships with Genentech, Roche, or their subsidiaries at the time of application. Disclosed conflicts are not automatically disqualifying, but they may require review, management, or mitigation consistent with institutional policy and sponsor requirements.

4. Research themes

Applicants should select one primary theme and pursue it with depth rather than trying to cover several themes superficially. Competitive proposals may address topics such as:

• Access friction and time to care. Identify where patients drop out, stall, or face avoidable delay across referral, diagnosis, initiation, prior authorization, site of care, or follow-up.
• Caregiving burden and care navigation. Quantify, characterize, or compare the operational and economic burden placed on caregivers, households, or informal support systems, and identify actionable levers for improvement.
• Affordability and persistence. Analyze the relationship between out-of-pocket burden, benefit design, utilization controls, or support mechanisms and persistence, adherence, or downstream outcomes.
• Value of innovation. Evaluate how innovation changes total burden, care utilization, quality of life, productivity, caregiving needs, or health-system costs in ways that matter to policy and payer audiences.
• Community and public-health disparities. Characterize disparities in uptake, outcomes, or access across populations, geographies, settings, or social-risk profiles and identify implications for intervention design.
• Evidence translation for decision-makers. Develop and test methods, syntheses, or applied analyses that help decision-makers interpret real-world evidence, public-health implications, or value signals more clearly.

5. Scope

5.1 What this program funds

This track may support:

• Real-world evidence studies using claims, EHR, registry, survey, administrative, or other credible data sources.
• Health economics and outcomes research, including burden-of-illness, utilization, affordability, cost-offset, and value-oriented analyses.
• Implementation science or care-delivery studies with a clear community, access, or public-health lens.
• Policy-relevant mixed-methods work that ends in clear, evidence-based recommendations.
• Structured evidence syntheses, including systematic reviews or meta-analyses, when they produce novel and decision-useful synthesis rather than a basic literature recap.

5.2 Out of scope

The following are not fundable under this track:

• Exploratory concepts without a focused question or executable method.
• Projects without credible, confirmable access to the required data or inputs.
• Product development, commercial market research, or sales- and marketing-oriented analysis.
• Clinical trials or projects requiring patient-care costs.
• Basic or bench science without a clear link to access, caregiving, outcomes, value, or public-health decision-making.
• Travel-only requests.
• Advocacy or lobbying activities.
• Opinion pieces, editorials, or commentaries without an underlying analytic body of work.
• Projects without a realistic 12-month path to external dissemination.

6. Dissemination requirements

This program funds research with the expectation that it will reach external audiences. Every funded project must include a dissemination strategy that is plausible, audience-specific, and aligned to the proposed study.

6.1 Conference or comparable external submission

Applicants must identify one to three target venues and explain why those venues fit the work. Depending on the field and audience, acceptable venues may include scientific meetings, health-services or public-health conferences, policy forums with formal submission processes, or comparable external channels that involve substantive review and audience relevance.

6.2 Publication requirement

Every funded project must submit at least one manuscript to a peer-reviewed journal or comparable scholarly outlet by the end of the award period. Applicants should propose outlets that match the likely contribution, method, and audience of the work.

6.3 Administrative review of external outputs

Before external submission, awardees must provide draft conference artifacts and near-final manuscript drafts to the Science Center Program Administrator for administrative review. This review is intended to confirm compliance, disclosures, required acknowledgments, protection of confidential information, and adherence to venue rules. It is not intended to dictate the scholarly conclusions of the work.

7. Deliverables and awardee expectations

Each funded project must produce the following minimum deliverables:

• At least one manuscript submitted to a peer-reviewed journal or comparable scholarly outlet.
• At least one conference, policy, or comparable external submission aligned to the dissemination plan.
• A non-technical executive summary of approximately 2 to 4 pages.
• A 10 to 15 slide deck suitable for sponsor briefings and external adaptation as appropriate.
• A kickoff report within 30 days of project start.
• A midpoint progress and financial status report at approximately 6 months.
• A final report within 30 days of project close addressing outputs, outcomes, and financial closeout.

8. Application materials

Applicants must submit a complete application package in a single PDF unless otherwise instructed in the application materials. Submission timing, review windows, and administrative milestones will be communicated separately.

8.1 Required components

A. Concept note (maximum 3 pages)

The concept note must include:

• Project title, team, and institution.
• Primary research theme.
• Research question or aims.
• Methods overview with enough specificity to assess rigor and feasibility.
• Data sources and feasibility, including whether access is already in hand or depends on approval, agreement, purchase, or other prerequisites.
• Expected outputs and why they matter.
• Conflict-of-interest disclosures for all key personnel.

Applications that depend on data or permissions not yet secured must provide a realistic timeline, process, and contingency plan. Unconfirmed data access is a material feasibility risk and will be scored accordingly.

B. Draft dissemination artifact(s) (1 to 2 items; maximum 1 page each)

Applicants should submit one or two draft external-facing artifacts appropriate to the intended venue, such as:

• A draft structured abstract.
• A draft policy brief outline.
• A session or panel pitch plus a one-page outline.
• A draft journal abstract or article outline.

C. Dissemination and timeline worksheet (required)

Applicants must provide a 12-month execution and dissemination plan showing how the work moves from kickoff to analysis, drafting, internal review, and external submission.

D. One-page workplan (required)

Applicants must provide month-by-month milestones covering execution, drafting, review, and submission activities.

E. Budget and justification (maximum 1 page; spreadsheet optional)

The total request may not exceed $25,000. Facilities and administrative costs are capped at 10% of modified total direct costs. Travel may be included when tied to project dissemination, but travel by itself is not a fundable use of this award.

F. Biosketches or CVs

Applicants must provide biosketches or CVs for key personnel, limited to 2 pages per person.

8.2 Optional second-stage request

Top-ranked applicants may be invited to provide a brief follow-on packet with additional diligence materials, such as a more detailed analysis plan, draft figures or tables, evidence of data access, draft IRB status information, or documentation of institutional approvals. An invitation to provide additional materials does not guarantee funding.

9. Review criteria

Applications will be reviewed against the following criteria:

• Problem clarity. Is the question focused, decision-relevant, and clearly framed?
• Methodological rigor. Is the proposed approach appropriate and credible?
• Feasibility. Can this team actually complete the work in 12 months with the resources requested?
• Data readiness. Is access to the required data, inputs, or permissions credible and timely?
• Dissemination strength. Are the target outputs and venues appropriate, realistic, and aligned with the study?
• Practical relevance. Will the likely findings matter to policy, payer, provider, public-health, or advocacy audiences?
• Team capability. Does the team have the expertise and execution capacity to deliver?

10. Practical standard

This program is simple in principle: fund scholarship that is ready to move. The strongest applications will not just describe an important issue; they will show a focused question, a feasible method, credible access to the needed inputs, and a disciplined path to getting the work into the venues where policy, coverage, public-health, and care-delivery decisions are shaped.
 

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Proposal deadline: August 19, 2026