Call for Proposals: The Science of Perception Box

Deadline Date: October 28, 2024

 Donor Name: Tiny Blue Dot Foundation

 Grant Size: $500,000 to $1 million

The Tiny Blue Dot Foundation seeks to fund up to 10 rigorous, empirical, statistically valid, and sound neuroscientific research projects related to a concept called Perception Box.

The grant funds will support research to develop relevant techniques and interventions to expand the walls of people’s Perception Box, to measure the effectiveness of such techniques and interventions for clinical or non-clinical populations and to track their basis in the brain using appropriate tools. This Request for Proposal relates directly to the Expanding the Walls of the Perception Box programmatic statement.

They also seek to support broad neuroscience-based research to allow children, teenagers and adults to understand that the reality they experience is a construct of their mind, amenable to change. That is, they can learn to expand their Perception Box to reduce the anxieties that come with living in the modern world, minimize strife and to be more mindful and compassionate with others and themselves. They fund innovative research involving mindfulness, breathwork, high-quality listening, psychedelics, neuromodulation and other techniques. For this RFP, they are particularly, but not exclusively, interested in research related to mental health and wellness in pediatric populations aged 5-18. 

Key Features

• The Request for Proposal (RFP) will involve a two-stage process to help minimize work for both principal investigators (PIs) and TBD.
• In the first stage, applicants must submit a letter of intent (LOI). All LOIs will be reviewed by TBD staff and evaluated for relevance toward meeting the overall goals of the RFP.
• During the second stage, up to 30 applicants who submit a suitable LOI will be invited to submit a Full Proposal, which will undergo a double-blind external review.
• In recognition that external review scores are an essential but imperfect predictor of project quality, they will include a partial lottery-style selection among the top ranked full proposals (in which proposals will be randomly selected before being presented for final approval). Some projects, however, may be selected because of their direct relevance to the foundation’s mission.
• To help applicants throughout the process, they will host webinars at key stages. Webinars will be recorded to accommodate applicants from different time zones.

Areas of Interest

• There are many ways in which such transformative experiences that expand the walls of their Perception Box can be achieved. Most involve a reduction in the sense of self and self-consciousness, undergoing ego reduction, relaxation, or even dissolution:
  • One: A variety of practices can be explored to shape Perception Box during childhood and adolescence. These critical periods have a lasting impact but not much is known about how to navigate them in a rapidly-changing world. Today’s children grow up under circumstances that can differ greatly from what their parents experienced. Technological advancements, including social media and AI, rapidly alter the socio-cultural landscape. Together, this highlights a burgeoning demand for ecologically valid practices that can prepare children and adolescents for a long-term trajectory of Perception Box expansion into adulthood. Proposed practices should be scalable, evidence based, and tailored to the right environment and age group.
  • Two: As taught by many spiritual traditions, a disengagement with the tangles of selfhood is often a prerequisite for expanding consciousness, enabling compassion and promoting well-being. This is at the heart of traditional meditation and mindfulness training techniques. They are eager to explore novel tools and methods to reduce the high barriers for meditation to succeed.
  • Three: Ego reduction can also be achieved by pranayama or other breathwork, by aerobic activities that induce a flow state and by other means yet to be discovered. Different interventions, such as sensory feedback using different neural signals and modalities, transcranial current stimulation and so on, seek to achieve this goal in a way that is safe, reproducible, practical, and universally applicable so that its impact can scale to benefit the largest number of people.

Funding Information

• Applicants can seek funding for up to three consecutive years with funding of up to a total of US$900,000. 
• This sum includes a maximum amount of 15% overhead.

Eligibility Criteria

• All Proposals must be submitted in English.
• Grants can only be awarded to a recognized Internal Revenue Code section 501(c) (3) medical schools, colleges, universities, or not-for-profit research organizations and, to the extent permissible pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, to similar organizations located within or outside the United States even if such organization are not recognized as Internal Revenue Code section 501(c) (3) organizations (collectively referred to as “Applicant Institution”). Applications will be considered from any country except for those on the US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list.
• All proposals will be screened against their financial compliance criteria. They may require applicants to submit more information if needed. If an extended screening is required, then the review and processing timeline for that proposal may be extended.
• The Principal Investigator should be a clinical, applied, or basic science researcher at the Applicant Institution with a MD, PhD, or an equivalent degree.
• The research should be focused on the discovery or development of tools and interventions to help expand the walls of people’s Perception Box, to measure the effectiveness of these tools and interventions and to track the effects of these on the minds, behaviors and brains of subjects. 
• They fund innovative research involving mindfulness, breathwork, high-quality listening, psychedelics, neuromodulation and other techniques. For this RFP, they are particularly, but not exclusively, interested in research related to mental health and wellness in pediatric populations aged 5-18. 
• This RFP is intended for scientific research related to humans. Projects that include philosophical enquiry, mathematical models, laboratory animals, or in vitro experiments must provide suitable justification for a grant award. 
• All finalist Applicants will be expected to pre-register their proposals and to provide a plan to disseminate their methods, data, and code, according to the FAIR principles.
• Applicants need to complete a LOI on their online portal by the deadline.
• To make use of the double-blind peer review mechanism, the required sections should exclude any information about the identity, institutional affiliation, and country of the PIs. 
• The Full Proposal should briefly address whether the PI has already, or is planning to, obtain permission from the relevant regulatory organizations (e.g., IRB, IACUC, DEA) regarding work with human subjects, laboratory animals, and/or controlled substances. Such approvals can be granted after the proposal submission deadline, but no grant funding will be released until such permissions have been obtained. 
• Applicants can make more than one submission with the proviso that TBD may decide to only proceed with one. In that case, they may consult with the applicant, or they may decide internally which one to prioritize. Researchers may also collaborate with teams on more than one proposal providing that does not lead to a conflict of interest.
• Applicants from last year who were not selected may submit their applications again providing they can satisfy the criteria of this round.

Review Criteria

• LOIs will undergo several review steps that include a panel of advisors. Full proposals will generally be reviewed by three external, paid reviewers not associated with TBD. To minimize bias, they designed a process to identify applicants hidden from external reviewers. Their review process involves multiple stages with separate criteria. The three key dimensions are as follows:
  • Relevance: To what extent is this proposal relevant to the goals of the RFP? Consider the following scoring guidelines:
    • Relevance is unclear.
    • Relevance is clear but modest.
    • Substantial relevance (should include developing or testing interventions that expand Perception Box with quantifiable success metrics).
    • Highly relevant (should include the above and contribute to a long-term vision of promoting mental well-being).
  • Approach: How realistic is the approach to achieving the project goals? Consider the following scoring guidelines:
    • The approach is not well reasoned or unrealistic to reach the project goals.
    • The approach seems reasonable, but it is not clear how the project would come together to reach the project goals.
    • The approach is strong with a realistic plan to reach the project goals.
    • Everything in Point 3 and the proposal includes reasonable contingencies in case plans fail.
  • Impact: If the project is successful, what impact could it have on mental wellbeing? The impact could be direct (e.g. developing or testing an intervention) or indirect (e.g. new knowledge that can be used to develop or test an intervention). Consider the following scoring guidelines:
    • The impact could be unclear or vague.
    • The impact could be significant but likely to be overshadowed by other efforts in the field.
    • The impact could be both significant and unique (i.e. making a distinctive contribution to the field).
    • The impact could be transformative (i.e. setting new standards or influencing a large audience over a long period of time.)

For more information, visit Tiny Blue Dot Foundation.