Synergy Research Awards


Hands holding different color puzzle pieces

The Synergy Awards were created in 2016 to spark new, synergistic interactions among investigators and to enable scientific achievements of the highest quality and impact.

The awards support collaborative projects among faculty throughout the Woodruff Health Sciences Center (WHSC), including Emory University School of Medicine, Rollins School of Public Health, Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, and all other units in health sciences at Emory.

The awards also support collaborative projects among WHSC faculty and faculty in Emory College.

Proposals for the Synergy Awards are required to include faculty members with primary appointments in at least two schools as co-principal investigators. The awards are intended to support new, highly innovative projects that are not yet funded or published.

Synergy Awards offer up to $100,000 for an award term of one year, with potential carryover to a second year under special circumstances. The awards are funded from the Office of the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs with support from the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Fund, Inc.

The Synergy Awards are funded from the Office of the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs, with support from the Robert W. Woodruff Health Sciences Center Fund, Inc.

Since the Synergy Awards were initiated in 2016, nine rounds of Synergy Awards have been awarded to 65 projects totaling $6.14 million. The impact of these grants have cut a broad swath, from research in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to outer space. They have resulted in 22 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals and many more are pending.