AHA has announced the 2018-19 research award application deadlines. The first deadlines in July include applications for the 2019 AHA Predoctoral and AHA Postdoctoral Fellowships. You may monitor the AHA Application Information web page for updates.

New requirements will be in place for research award programs with deadlines after June 1. Please be aware of these new policies and always review program descriptions for current information.

2018-19 AHA Research Award Offerings

Institutional Undergraduate Student Award
Encourages students from all disciplines to consider research careers. This is made to qualified institutions that can offer a meaningful research experience that supports the AHA mission undergraduate college students.

AHA Predoctoral Fellowship
Enhances the integrated research and clinical training of promising students who are matriculated in pre-doctoral or clinical health professional degree training programs and who intend careers as scientists, physician-scientists or other clinician-scientists, or related careers aimed at improving global cardiovascular health.

AHA Postdoctoral Fellowship
Enhances the integrated research and clinical training of postdoctoral applicants who are not yet independent. The applicant must be embedded in an appropriate research group with the mentorship, support, and relevant scientific guidance of a research supervisor.

AHA Institutional Research Enhancement Award (AIREA)
Supports small-scale research projects related to CVD and stroke at educational institutions that provide baccalaureate or advanced degrees but that have not been major recipients of NIH support. For any part of the full range of research and development from very basic to clinical.

Merit Award
Supports individual scientists with a trajectory of success, who propose novel approaches to major research challenges in the areas of CV and stroke that have the potential to produce unusually high impact.

Career Development Award
Supports highly promising healthcare and academic professionals, in the early years of one’s first professional appointment, to explore innovative questions or pilot studies that will guide future strategies related to all aspects of cardiovascular and stroke research. The award requires a supportive mentoring team and a career development plan.

Established Investigator Award
Supports mid-career healthcare and academic investigators with unusual promise and in rapid growth phase, who have established records of accomplishments, and demonstrated commitment to questions related to cardiovascular or cerebrovascular science.

Innovative Project Award
Funds ideas that may introduce new paradigms, challenge current paradigms, look at existing problems from new perspectives, or exhibit other uniquely creative qualities. Preliminary data is not required and not accepted as part of the proposal. However, a solid rationale for the work must be provided.

Transformational Project Award
Represents the second phase of a new idea; proposals should include preliminary data. Proposed work should be the next logical step of previous work, and should already be demonstrating a high probability of revealing new avenues of investigation, if successful.

Collaborative Sciences Award
Allows two or more primary investigators from disparate disciplines, with histories of innovative collaborations, to work on a project that is achievable only with efforts from both disciplines.

Institute for Precision Cardiovascular Grants
The American Heart Association’s Institute for Precision Cardiovascular Medicine aims to advance the science and practice of personalized medicine to improve cardiovascular health of individuals and populations. The Institute is creating products and services that integrate research with more precise approaches to reverse and prevent cardiovascular disease and stroke. Funding opportunities are available to scientists of all fields, which include Cardiovascular Genome-Phenome Study Grants, and awards that incorporate data science and precision medicine. Visit the Institute to learn more.

Strategically Focused Research Networks
A Network is comprised of three to five institutions, or Centers, each working on three projects that are focused on one strategic area. These programs require an overall application from the Center Director, and three proposals from project Principal Investigators. AHA selects two different Strategically Focused Research Network topics per fiscal year.