Scientific Innovations Award | Neurological Studies & Awards

Scientific Innovations Award Guidelines

The 2026 Scientific Innovations Award (SIA) opens on April 1, 2025.

If your institution did not receive an invitation directly from BRF via e-mail, then you are not eligible to apply. To learn more about institutional eligibility and our application guidelines, click below.

2026 SIA Guidelines

INSTITUTIONAL ELEGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

If you and your team are on the cusp of making a neurological scientific discovery that will impact society and the medical, scientific or structural approaches taken to brain disease, disorders or development and learning, you could be eligible to apply for our Scientific Innovation Award.

Below are just some of the innovative scientific studies BRF have funded to date.

Award Archive

Investigations supported by Scientific Innovations Awards yield high-impact findings and result in major grant applications and significant publications in respected journals.

Year

Robert Froemke Ph.D. NYU School of Medicine

The Neuroscience of Families: Social Behavior in Naturalistic Controlled Environments

Robert FroemkePh.D.NYU School of Medicine Animals can work together in groups to achieve specific aims with higher success rates than if acting alone. For communally-living and consociating species such as…

Ken Prehoda, Ph.D. University of Oregon

Brain Regeneration Dynamics Using the Transparent Fish Danionella Cerebrum

2025 Scientific Innovations AwardKen Prehoda, Ph.D.University of Oregon Regenerative medicine may one day enable us to repair brain damage caused by injury and disease. While humans and other mammals cannot…

James J DiCarlo, M.D., Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Using Computer Models of the Neural Mechanisms of Visual Processing to Non-Invasively Modulate Brain States

DiCarlo’s research team is exploring an innovative approach to address emotional challenges, such as anxiety and depression. Traditional treatments for these disorders can be complex and often cause unpleasant side effects,…

Eiman Azim, Ph.D., The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Learning from Error: Defining how Cerebellar Circuits Drive Adaptation in a Changing World

The ability to move effectively through the world is one of the most important functions of the brain. However, the world and the body are constantly changing, meaning the signals…

Hillel Adesnik, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

All Optically Probing the Neural Codes of Perception in the Primate Brain

How patterns of action potentials in space and time give rise to sensory experience is among the most enduring mysteries of biology. Despite decades of experiments correlating brain activity patterns…

Chaolin Zhang, Ph.D., Columbia University

Human-specific Alternative Splicing, Brain
Development, and Ciliopathies

Like movie frames needing to be edited to tell an engaging story, pieces of genetic information stored in DNA for each gene need to be sliced and rejoined, through a…

Jason Shepherd, Ph.D. University of Utah

Virus-like Intercellular Signaling Underlying Autoimmune Neurological Disorders

Dr. Shepherd’s lab discovered that a brain gene critical for memory and cognition, Arc, has biochemical properties like retroviruses such as HIV. Arc protein can form virus-like protein capsids that…

Brain Research Foundation Woman in Wheelchair Working on a Laptop

Apply for a Scientific Innovations Award

Scientific Innovation Awards are $150,000 2-year grants directed at projects that may be too innovative and speculative for traditional funding sources, but still have a high likelihood of producing important findings. The Principal Investigator (PI) must be an associate or full professor working in the field of neuroscience.

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