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Stepping Strong Innovator Award

The Stepping Strong Innovator Award supports research and innovation across the continuum of trauma care from prevention to treatment and recovery. Up to three awards in the amount of $100,000 each will be granted for a one-year period, inclusive of up to 20% indirect costs.

45  teams

funded to advance trauma care

$4.5+  million

given in research funding

350+  articles

published with research results

How It Works

Application Cycle: November – June

Stage 1: Letters of Intent

Letters will be shared with a review committee consisting of The Gillian Reny Stepping Strong Center for Trauma Innovation leadership and Medical Executive Committee members. Invitations to submit full proposals will be sent to applicants.

Stage 2: Applications

Proposals will undergo a review based on the criteria outlined in the RFA, including scientific and programmatic feasibility, the significance of the clinical problem the proposal seeks to solve, and the strength of the research team applying. Selected finalists will be notified.

Stage 3: Finalist Presentations

Finalists will present to the review committee, consisting of the center’s leadership, the Stepping Strong Medical Executive Committee, faculty at other institutions, donors, venture capitalists, representatives of the biopharma/device industry, and partners of the Stepping Strong Center. The review committee will provide insights from organizational, commercialization, and clinical perspectives.

Stage 4: Funding Awarded

Based on the feedback from the review committee following the presentations, the Stepping Strong Center leadership will select the Stepping Strong Innovator Award recipients.

  • Applications can be submitted by clinicians, academic researchers, allied health professionals, post-doctoral fellows, public health professionals, community partners, engineers, or leadership at startups. Research can be conducted jointly between the public and private sectors.
  • At least one collaborator must have their primary affiliation at a Mass General Brigham (MGB) institution and no more than 25% of the award funding can be allocated to institutions external to MGB.
  • Previous applicants of the Stepping Strong Innovator Awards are eligible to re-apply. Previous recipients may re-apply two years after receiving their initial award and are encouraged to mentor research trainees and early career faculty applying for Stepping Strong Center research funds.
  • Applicants may serve as the Principal Investigator (PI) on only one proposal but may serve as Co-Investigator on multiple proposals.
  • U.S. and non-U.S. citizens are welcome to apply.

Proposals should align with the National Trauma Research Action Plan (NTRAP) and focus on one of three key areas within the continuum of trauma care:

Injury Prevention

Focuses on designing, evaluating, and implementing community- and hospital-based strategies to reduce or prevent injuries, with an emphasis on scalable interventions that can be applied in real-world settings.

Treatment

Includes basic, translational, and clinical research aimed at improving survival, minimizing complications, and enhancing therapeutic outcomes. This may involve innovations in hemorrhage control, triage strategies, critical care protocols, and new therapeutic techniques.

Recovery

Supports research that enhances long-term physical and psychological rehabilitation, including studies on trauma-related health outcomes, prosthetic advancements, and rehabilitation strategies to improve quality of life.

Yes, the center will accept applications from other institutions if there is at least one collaborator on the team with a primary affiliation at an MGB hospital or research institution, and no more than 25% of the award funding can be allocated to institutions external to MGB.

Yes, MGB will take 20% indirect costs on the direct cost budget. This should be factored into the applicant’s total budget of $100,000.

View our 2026 request for applications

View 2026 RFA

See What We’ve Funded

In 2019, we received a Stepping Strong Innovator Award that helped us establish our center. This helped us establish our center, and define multiple findings related to intimate partner violence. It resulted in 11 publications and it allowed us to get various national-level grants from ACR, NIH, and the National Academy of Medicine.”

Bharti Khurana, MD, MBA

Stepping Strong Innovator Award Recipient
Founder, Director, and Principal Investigator, Trauma Imaging Research and Innovation Center, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

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