Applications for this scholarship opportunity are due June 12, by 5 pm (ET).

PCORI is pleased to offer financial scholarships for PCORI Ambassadors and patient and caregiver stakeholders to participate in person at the 2023 PCORI Annual Meeting.

This scholarship is intended to ensure equitable and inclusive opportunity, particularly for those who have been traditionally underserved, to attend PCORI’s Annual Meeting, which will be held Wednesday and Thursday, October 4-5 (with a pre-meeting optional workshop on Tuesday, October 3). Scholarships will cover the recipients’ travel (inside the United States only), hotel and per diem allowance for both the applicant and the caregiver/support person (if medically required). There is no conference registration fee.

The PCORI Annual Meeting brings together members of the healthcare community, including researchers, patients, caregivers, clinicians, insurers, health system representatives, and others interested and involved with patient-centered research.

The event serves as a report on ways that PCORI-funded research and project teams are generating results that improve patient outcomes and support better informed health and healthcare decisions. This year’s meeting will include both in-person and virtual attendance as PCORI continues to closely monitor the situation with COVID-19 and variants, with your safety being a top priority.

While the majority of meeting attendees will join via a virtual conference platform, a small number of meeting attendees will participate in person, including all scholarship awardees. PCORI is working with the meeting venue to develop and implement a range of safety measures and protocols to support in-person attendance. PCORI's approach will align with and/or exceed recommendations from federal and local public health authorities.

This is a competitive opportunity for a select number of PCORI Ambassadors, patients, caregivers/support persons and patient/caregiver advocacy organizations.

Ambassador Application Patient, Patient Advocate, and Caregiver Application

Key Dates and Applicant Communication

We will notify applicants of scholarship awards by June 30. Scholarship awardees will receive further information at that time regarding registration and instructions to book travel and lodging.

Those who do not secure a scholarship remain eligible to register for in-person attendance at PCORI’s Annual Meeting on a first-come, first-served basis and without financial assistance.

All applicants may contact [email protected] at any time during the review and/or award process with questions concerning the scholarship program.

Scholarship Review Process

PCORI staff will review all scholarship applications. To mitigate potential conflicts of interest, reviewers recuse themselves from evaluating any applicants with whom they have or had a close professional or personal association.

The review process draws from existing processes previously developed to support other PCORI activities, including the advisory panel selection processes. Multiple reviewers are assigned to all applications. Reviewers use the same selection criteria for every application in the interest of consistency (see below).

Eligibility

Applicants must meet one or both of the following eligibility criteria:

• Participation in PCORI’s Ambassador Program (e.g., please speak to length of membership and/or types of activities in which you have engaged). Read more about PCORI’s Ambassador Program.
• Self-identification as a patient, caregiver/support person and/or patient/caregiver advocacy organization representative. Read more about how PCORI defines patient and caregiver communities.

Applicants will be asked to respond to a brief series of open- and closed-ended questions regarding their personal information, geographic location, participation in previous PCORI Annual Meetings, and plans or ideas for sharing their learnings from Annual Meeting participation with their communities.

• Applicants are also asked to submit a brief personal statement that explains which of the two eligibility criteria they meet and describes their experience and/or interest in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR), stakeholder engagement, and/or their motivation for wanting to attend the PCORI Annual Meeting.

Selection Criteria

The following selection criteria are used to evaluate each application according to background, expertise, experience, and current or desired level of involvement with PCORI and patient-centered outcomes research. The selection criteria include:

Criterion 1: Potential for applicant to promote equitable representation of diverse perspectives at PCORI’s Annual Meeting. Reviewers may examine any of, but not limited to, the following characteristics in seeking to ensure equitable and diverse representation of perspectives. Special attention may be placed on characteristics that tend to describe communities and individuals who are historically underrepresented in the health research enterprise. Read more about PCORI’s overall approach to diversity, equity and inclusion.

• Research interests (e.g., populations, settings, diseases/conditions)
• Geographic location (e.g., region, state) or setting (e.g., rural, urban)
• Sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., race/ethnicity, disability, education, etc.)
• Previous participation in PCORI Annual Meeting (Note: Preference will be given to those who have not previously attended a PCORI Annual Meeting.)

Criterion 2: Expressed commitment to personal and/or professional goals aligned with PCORI’s mission. This may include, but is not limited to:

• Interest and/or experience with health care, patient-centered outcomes research and/or stakeholder engagement
• Motivation to become involved with PCORI (e.g., commitment to past involvement [if applicable] and interest in future engagement with specific PCORI programs)
• Clarity regarding how PCORI Annual Meeting participation may help advance personal and/or professional goals and/or what they are hoping to gain

Criterion 3: Pathways for sharing experience and learnings. Applicants are expected to share ideas for how they may share lessons learned from the PCORI Annual Meeting with their personal and professional communities. This may include a description of their personal and professional communities and how those communities may benefit from learning about PCORI, and/or discrete examples of communication pathways (e.g., blogs, tweets, editorials, podcasts, etc.).

Applications for this scholarship opportunity are due June 12, by 5:00 pm ET.

Ambassador Application Patient, Patient Advocate, and Caregiver Application

Posted: May 12, 2023