PTCOG Project Funding 2024, Topics and Procedures

PTCOG is a Co-Operative organization dedicated to the field of particle therapy. This is a multi-disciplinary field involving a number of specialties. It is central to this field that work to facilitate research and development is encouraged. Beyond its primary role to bring together the practitioners and newcomers to the field in the context of scientific exchange, education and publication, PTCOG has gone a step further by beginning to provide some tangible funding to help expedite appropriate endeavors in the field. To that end, each year, PTCOG will accept proposals for Scientific Projects and Education and provide funding for a select few of these. The PTCOG budget is limited, but the organization will strive to make some funding available.

At this time PTCOG will start by considering funding in the following categories. All of these categories can be part of studies involving clinical, biology and physics or mixed disciplines. All proposals are required to be submitted not later than March 1^st, 2024.

The projects awarded by PTCOG will be announced during the PTCOG 62 Conference in Singapore in June 2024. 

The categories are:

1.  Educational Outreach (partial funding) (one per year)
2.  Individual exchange program visits to operating facilities (e.g. partial travel)
3.  Travel fellowships to PTCOG sponsored/endorsed events
4. Partial support for specific activities related to a collaborative research program.
       This can have many forms and some examples of these can be:
   •  Retrospective and prospective analyses (e.g. student funding or travel support)
   •  Beam measurements (e.g. beam time and/or travel support)
   •  Instrumentation testing collaborative support
   •  Combined therapies, flash irradiation radiobiology, toxicity mechanisms: proof of concept
5. Support for data mining and/or categorization related to particle therapy publications                    

The process will be as follows:
   A) A PTCOG member writes a scientific proposal (please download and use this template;
       5 pages maximum) and submit it to the Project Funding Committee.
       The proposal must, at least, contain the following:
         a. Proposal Topic
         b. Explanation of why it is important for the field.
         c. Estimation of timetable for key milestones
         d. A detailed budget
         e. Expected deliverables, such as publications and/or useful data for the community
  B) The PTCOG Project Funding Committee will define a short list of the proposals with a summary
       of the strengths and weaknesses, and submit that to the Executive Committee.
  C) The Executive Committee will make a final selection.
  D) Funding will be announced at the following PTCOG Annual Conference.
  E Project funding will be dependent on the available allocated budget of PTCOG for that year (about 50 k$ are available per year).
  F) The Awardee will be required to provide a written status and present the results
       at the one of the PTCOG Annual Conferences.

On behalf of the PTCOG organization I encourage you to apply and look forward to seeing your work providing enhanced clarity for our field.

PTCOG Chair