Two tiers are established: Younger <46 years of age (at the time of submission), and Senior: ≥46 years.  Within each tier there will be two categories: Basic Sciences and Clinic Sciences. A maximum of $ 20,000 USD will be allocated per category, within each tier. (Total Budget for the Award: 80000 US dollars)

Candidate eligibility

-   The applicant must reside and work in a country of the region (Latin America), at the time of submission.

-   For the Younger Tier the applicant must be younger than 46 years at the time of submission.

-   For the Senior Tier the applicant must be 46 years or older at the time of submission.

-   Applicants that have already received this Award (previously called The PANLAR PRIZE), are not eligible to apply again.

-   Applicants must be members of one of the Rheumatology National Societies (or Associations) members of PANLAR.

 

Calendar

·        Announcement and official opening of the award(s): November 11, 2022

·        Initial selection of Jurors (evaluators): To be completed by January 15, 2023

·        Deadline for submission of proposals: January 15, 2023

·        Designations of Jurors: January 18, 2023 (once the number of proposals and the number of applications by category are known).

·        Applications are forwarded to the jurors: By January 23, 2023.

·        Evaluations by the jurors: To be completed by February 26, 2023.

·        PANLAR Awards results to be announced: March 10, 2023 

·        Presentation of the PANLAR Award: April 26, 2023, at the PANLAR Annual Congress in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

 

About the presentation of the documentation

All the documentation will be uploaded on the PANLAR platform specially designed for this purpose on the PANLAR´s website.  Documentation submitted after the established deadline or not submitted on the PANLAR website will not be accepted (or reviewed).

 

About the Application.

All documents, except those in which it is explicitly indicated, should be submitted in English. Applications in which all the documents are not in English (except those in which it is explicitly indicated) will not be evaluated. All documents should be uploaded by the applicant (except as noted below), no documents should be send/received outside the project application.

i.          Resume. (2 pages limit).  To include the following: Education and training, publications (last 5 years), prior grant support (if applicable) and administrative/clinical responsibilities (if applicable).

ii.          Personal statement (1 page limit). This statement should specify the place/institution where the study will be conducted and the position of the candidate within the organization. It also should indicate where the applicant sees himself/herself in the future.

iii.          Work accomplished (1 page limit). This should be a short narrative of what the applicant has already done in the field highlighting his/her most important accomplishments.

iv.          Endorsement letter by the National Society: Endorsement letter. It musty indicate that the applicant is an active member in good standing at the National Society and that the National Society supports his/her application. This letter could be written in the National Society’s official language.

v.          Endorsement letter from the Institution where the applicant works, and the study will be conducted: It must be clearly stated that it approves the conduct of the proposed study and that it will protect the investigator’s time for completion of the award.

vi.          Two letters of support that should be sent by the persons writing them to secretaria@panlar.org

vii.          Approval by the Institutional Review Board. A letter of approval from an IRB, should be included. This letter could be written in the IRB’s official language.

 

About the project.

·        Research project (limit to 10 pages excluding the references): It must not contain any information that will either identify the candidate, the institution or the country where the project will be conducted

·       The project should be from the applicant and not from a group of investigators.

·       The project must include the budget in US$

·       The applicant is allowed to seek other funds for the same project; however the applicant must show that the study is feasible only with the award to be received or with additional funding already secured or likely to be secured.

 

About the evaluation.

·       The PANLAR secretariat and the Education Committee will verify that all documentation is correct. Incomplete applications will be rejected and not evaluated. Only complete applications will be processed further.

·       The evaluation of all applications will be done by a group of recognized and suitable specialists from the Americas

·        Different evaluators will be appointed for Basic and Clinical Sciences projects.

·       Evaluators must accept their designation in writing within 4 working days from receiving the invitation. Jurors cannot be applicants in any award category regardless of the category in which they have presented their own projects.

·       Four independent teams (basic and clinical evaluators for each tier) will evaluate all the projects in each category. If the number of projects within one or more categories is too large (more than 15) for each evaluator to assess all of them, the coordinator would indicate, with the approval of the Education committee, how the evaluators would complete the scoring,

·       The evaluation of the projects will be blinded.

·       If a reviewer believes s/he has a COI with the project assigned for evaluation, after submitting his/her acceptance letter, s/he must notify this to the Award Coordinator and the PANLAR Secretariat immediately. If a COI was identified by the Prize Coordinator or the PANLAR Secretariat at a later time, that evaluation will not be considered in the final score.

·       If a COI is identified prior to completing the evaluation, the Award Coordinator will assign the project to another juror/evaluator.

·       The scores will be recorded in a grid designed for this purpose and available on the specific PANLAR Award platform.  The range of the scores for the project will be from 1 (best) to 9 (worst). Jurors are strongly encouraged to use the full range of the scores.

·       Projects will receive 95% of the weight of the final score. Resumes will receive the other 5%.

·         As with the projects, juries are encouraged to use the full range of qualifications and to give more weight to the candidate’s scientific output (publications, abstracts) than to the candidate’s educational background.

·         A project’s feasibility may be part of the initial assessment and will be considered for the score assigned to the project. High scores shall not be given to projects that, due to the applicant’s characteristics or to the budget requested, are unfeasible.

·         Each reviewer shall justify scores given for each application in 3-4 sentences. These comments will be given to candidates as feedback.

·         PANLAR secretariat will give access to the jurors to all the information related to those projects (resume, personal statement, letters of endorsement, letters of support, IRB approval). Jurors should complete this second evaluation within the time frame.

 

About the coordination.

One Coordinator would be appointed. In case it is needed a Sub-Coordinator could also be appointed. In this case the Sub-Coordinator will assume the tasks assigned by the coordinator.

 The coordinator (and Sub-Coordinator) will not act as evaluators. S/he will have access to the entire documentation for all projects.

 

About the final result.

1.     For each of the categories, the applicant with the best will receive the corresponding award.

2.     Prior to that, the Award Coordinator will verify that all the evaluations have been received and the scores have been properly computed.

3.     The Coordinator will communicate to the PANLAR executive through the PANLAR Secretariat that the scores are final so that PANLAR can proceed to communicate the results.

 

Monitoring of the Award (s).

A progress report using a pre-established format to be provided by the Secretariat is due at the end of March, June, September and December. The first report is due at the end of the first quarter after the monies have been transferred to the awardee. The reports will be submitted to the PANLAR Secretariat and the Award Coordinator and continued until the study is completed or 3 years have elapsed since the award was presented.

 

On situations not contemplated in these regulations.

Any situation not contemplated in these regulations will be resolved by the Education Committee after the feedback provided by the Prize (s) coordinator.

Submit your application in English here