Annual Research Award
The European Society of Endodontology (ESE) is offering an annual research grant to support a pilot research project, studies on endodontic health and systemic disease, to purchase equipment or conduct research in the field of Endodontology.
- The applicant must be associated with a dental school or research institute in a country that is a full or associate member of the European Society of Endodontology.
- The applicant must submit by email to administrator@e-s-e.eu before the closing date 1st of September each year:
- a protocol of the proposed research project (approximately 10 pages), which should describe the background to the topic, the aim and the methodology in detail supported with references to previous research in the field.
- details of the proposed costing of the project, the sources from which funds have already been obtained, and the sources to which applications for funding have been made. Details should be given of equipment or consumables for which the ESE Annual Research Grant is being sought.
- a brief curriculum vitae with high resolution photograph (head and neck only).
- a letter of support from the Dental School/Institution to confirm that the applicant is to undertake the study at the school.
- The upper limit of the ESE Annual Research Grant will vary depending on resources, but will never be more than €20 000. The ESE will not pay institutional overheads, and may split the grant between several applicants, according to merit. Payment will be made to institutions, and not to individuals.
- On completion of the project the applicants will be expected to submit a final report on the completed work to the Administrator (administrator@e-s-e.eu) of the European Society of Endodontology and an original scientific article to the International Endodontic Journal which will have first choice on considering the paper for publication. The paper should meet the requirements as stated in the ‘Authors Guidelines’.
- Successful applicants will receive 80% of the award immediately upon receiving the award but the Treasurer will only release the final increment of the grant (20% of the total award) after the final report is submitted.
- The decision of the adjudicating panel will be final and all participants will be notified of the decision by 1st November each year.
- An applicant can only submit one proposal per year.
The questions considered in the evaluation of ESE Annual Research Grant applications
The questions below describe the items usually considered when evaluating the research grant applications. The applicants are advised to use them as a guide and a checklist when planning and writing the research proposal. Depending on the research question and methodology, some questions may have more weight on the evaluation: for example, in an epidemiological study the description of the statistical analysis methods should be given more emphasis than in descriptive studies. Therefore, the list should be regarded only as a guide.
- Is the application well-structured, is the form and language clear and concise?
- Is the previous research (background) in the field described?
- Is the research question/hypothesis supported and clearly presented?
- Can the question/hypothesis be answered with the study design?
- Is the study design in regards to sample sizes, numbers of experiments, text and control groups suitable?
- Have the materials and methods been described in sufficient details?
- How applicable and suitable is the statistical method, and does it fit with the expected data set?
- Is the applicant sufficiently competent to complete the work proposed?
- Is the research environment suitable, is the support for the applicant sufficient?
- How clear is the applicant's role on the project?
- Is the proposed budget realistic and justified?
- Is the topic relevant, important and novel?
Additional regulations for grants covering studies on endodontic health and systemic disease
Funding is considered for work that will:
- participate in ongoing large-scale medical studies with clinically relevant outcome measures, such as the onset of cardiac or other systemic disease, or death. This would allow the access to medical health data, and the grant could be used, for example, to collect and analyse oral health data; or
- study the outcome of both the systemic disease and apical periodontitis in severely immunocompromised patients (e.g. hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients); or
- initiate a practice based research network (European Endodontic Research Network, EERN) for a prospective study of the clinically relevant outcomes of both apical periodontitis and systemic health on patients with and without systemic disease or condition, which has previously been linked with endodontic infections. These may contain, but are not necessarily limited to, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, pregnancy (low birth weight, premature delivery), and diseases requiring permanent immunosuppressive or biological medication.
The grant applications should follow the ESE Annual Research Grant rules with the following supplementary conditions:
- in addition to the Primary Investigator (PI), the signed document(s) describing the acceptance of the research plan and permission to use the pre-existing data of all the participating parties must be included as an attachment(s). This/these can be for example separate document(s) or a joint agreement of all the participants;
- approval from an appropriate ethical committee(s), the patient registry holder and/or the respective institution(s) must be included as an attachment. If such documents are pending at the deadline of the application, the ESE reserves the right to withhold the grant until these documents are provided by the applicant.
- a timeline must be provided especially for the studies requiring long follow-ups;
- a budget detailing the distribution of the costs;
- since the ESE grant may be considered as start-up funding especially for studies requiring long follow-ups, the applicants must provide a plan for future and additional funding applications.