The Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics is a career development award to enable junior faculty members to carry out innovative bioethics research. It supports research that goes beyond current work in bioethics to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical, biomedical, and public health decision-making, policy, and practice, and creates a community that enhances future bioethics research by Scholars and Alumni/ae.
Each year, the Foundation selects approximately three Greenwall Faculty Scholars to receive 50 percent salary support for three years to enable them to carry out a specific research proposal and develop their research program.
Please note: Only one applicant from a university or non-profit research institute will be considered in each application cycle. Institutions should have an internal screening and selection process, as the Foundation will not consider multiple letters of intent received from a single institution. For purposes of this limitation, the Foundation considered the overseeing university to be the institution. Thus, a university with a law school, medical school, several teaching hospitals, and a faculty of arts and sciences may only submit one application in total. If a university system, such as a state-wide university system, comprises several universities, each university within the system may nominate one applicant.
Deadlines:
- Duke Internal: Aug. 1, 2024
- Letter of Intent Deadline: Sep. 16, 2024
What does the Faculty Scholars Program Committee look for in letters of intent?
1. Quality of the proposed project. Does it address an important bioethics issue in an innovative way? Does the application show how the project will make a significant advance beyond what has already been published on the topic? Is the applicant thinking about the conceptual and normative ethical issues regarding the topic in a rigorous and creative way?
In the case of proposals to carry out an empirical study of a topic that has a bioethics component, the most successful applicants have conducted enough empirical research to be able to discuss what conceptual or normative bioethics issues they will focus on. Because the Greenwall Faculty Scholar award is intended to ensure that at least 50 percent of the Scholar’s effort and time are devoted to bioethics research, the applicant will need to show that additional funding also will be available for any data collection and analysis. Applicants will need to summarize the methods for the empirical part of the project as well. Applicants who propose to carry out empirical work on a bioethics issue, without a strong conceptual framework, normative analysis, and methods are unlikely to be successful. Applicants who are extending previous empirical research to a new population or clinical condition are unlikely to be successful unless they demonstrate persuasively how their proposed extension is innovative.
Historical, theological, psychological, qualitative sociological, normative, legal, comparative, and policy research projects are welcomed, provided they are tightly tied to bioethics. Pure advocacy is not supported.
2. Importance of the topic. The Faculty Scholars Program supports research to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical, biomedical, and public health decision-making, policy, and practice. The topic of the proposed research should be timely and relevant, and the proposed project should seek to meaningfully contribute to its understanding. Successful applicants often demonstrate their commitment to the topic through prior related work or a clear professional trajectory.
3. Potential of the applicant to further the field of bioethics and contribute to and benefit from the Program. The Program Committee carefully considers a candidate’s personal statement and goals at the letter of intent stage; if a full application is invited, the Program Committee considers, among other things, an institution’s commitment to the candidate and the candidate’s plan for professional development and mentorship.
The Program Committee also considers whether an applicant has demonstrated an ability to carry out innovative bioethics research. At the full application stage of the selection process, the Program Committee carefully reads a first- or sole-authored book chapter or peer-reviewed bioethics article written by the applicant that has been published or is in press. Because this demonstrated publication of bioethics research is given great weight, applicants who have not yet published an innovative bioethics article will not be successful. The Program Committee assesses candidates on their potential; prior work is used to assess future creativity, productivity, and prospect of becoming a leader in the field.
Applicants must be junior faculty members at a university or non-profit research institute that has tax-exempt status in the United States. Applicants must hold a faculty appointment (or other long-term research position outside a university) that allows at least 50 percent of their effort to perform research (often this is a faculty position with at least a 60 percent appointment in a tenure-track position or its equivalent). Priority will be given to applicants who have not yet been considered for tenure or an equivalent promotion; whose research will have an impact on clinical, biomedical, and public health decision-making, policy, and practice; and who will make important contributions to the field of bioethics over their careers.
Faculty Scholars will be selected on the basis of their achievements, the strength of their research project, their commitment to the field of bioethics, and support from their home institution, including after the end of this award. While the amount and quality of an applicant’s research in bioethics will count favorably towards their application, outstanding candidates with less direct experience in bioethics will also be considered when their proposed work aims to advance the bioethics field.
Within this group, priority will be given to applicants whose research addresses innovative ideas and/or emerging topics. Lower priority will be given to applicants who are primarily carrying out educational reform or theoretical work with limited applicability to practice, research, or policy. The Greenwall Foundation values and supports diverse voices in bioethics and particularly welcomes applicants from backgrounds that are underrepresented in bioethics and academia.
The award supports 50 percent of a Scholar’s salary plus benefits for three years, up to the NIH salary cap, with 10 percent institutional costs for the salary and benefits. This funding is intended to ensure that at least 50 percent of the Scholar’s time is devoted to bioethics research. In addition, the Foundation provides $5,000 each year for limited project support and travel (no indirect costs are provided for these items).
Farr A Curlin, MD
Class of: 2009
Variance on the Margins of Religion and Medicine
2008
Charmaine D M Royal, PhD
Associate Research Professor
Duke University Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy
2004
Anne D Lyerly, MD, MA
Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Duke University Medical Center
Owing to the sponsor's restriction on the number of applications that may be submitted from Duke, anyone wishing to pursue nomination should submit the following materials as one PDF:
- CV
- Brief abstract of project (no more than 250 words)
Please submit internal materials through My Research Proposal. (Code: ILN) https://www.grantinterface.com/sl/r32zVl
Instructions for creating an account (if needed) and submitting your materials: https://ctsi.duke.edu/about-myresearchproposal