EHA Research Grant review and selection process

1. Eligibility check

After the deadline has passed, we'll check your application for completion and compliance with the eligibility criteria. 

We will not review applications that:

Are incomplete—for example, that are missing signatures or do not include a budget
Do not meet the eligibility criteria

If your application did not qualify for review, you'll receive a notification. This decision is final.

2. Preliminary review  

EHA’s Fellowships and Grants Committee will:

Perform a preliminary review of the applications
Decide which applications will proceed to the next stage, which is an in-depth evaluation by an external peer review panel

You'll receive a notification about the success of your application in this first round. If you have not been selected for the next round, you'll receive short feedback from the committee.

3. External review

To assist our Fellowships and Grants Committee with the selection procedure, at least three external reviewers will review the project proposal in detail. These reviewers will be experts in the proposal's topic.

External reviewers will score your application based on the following parameters.

Project

The significance and impact.
The novelty and originality.
The appropriateness of the methods.
The feasibility of the proposal.
The host institute/scientific environment where the research will be conducted.

Investigator

The track record and international standing of the investigator.
The skills and expertise of the investigator (and collaborators, if applicable).
The commitment to research culture and extramural activities.

Budget considerations

Are the budgeted activities clearly listed and assigned?
Are the costs of resources/activities researched and substantiated?
Can the project be achieved with the resources and planned timeline?

Overall evaluation

To what extent does the proposed research address important challenges?
To what extent are the objectives ambitious and beyond the state of the art (e.g. novel concepts and approaches)?
To what extent is the proposed research high risk/high gain?

What happens at the end of the external review

This external review will produce feedback both for the Fellowships and Grants Committee and for you as the applicant. The committee will use this feedback to decide who to invite for an interview.

Whatever the outcome of your application, you'll receive the external review feedback after the awardees are announced. We hope that this feedback will provide some guidance on how the application and research plan could be improved. Please note that there will be no further correspondence regarding this feedback.

4. Interviews

If you are selected for an interview, this will be conducted in May 2025 via a video call. We'll share the date and time of this interview in advance.

Format

During the interview, you'll be expected to:

Present your proposal to the Fellowships and Grants Committee in no more than eight minutes
Take part in a follow-up 15-minute question and answer session

To ensure that you perform as well as possible, we recommend that you spend some time rehearsing your presentation.

We'll notify you of the outcome of your interview within one week.

5. Ceremonial award acceptance

If you're selected as a winner, you'll receive complimentary registration for the EHA2025 Congress. This will take place from June 12–15, 2025. The location has yet to be announced.

Grant recipients are expected to attend this event, where they will formally receive their award during the opening ceremony.

6. Actions after a grant has been awarded

Starting your project

You must start your project within one year of receiving your award.

Funding agreement

You must provide all of necessary information for the funding agreement. This will include:

Bank details
The project's start date

You and your institute must also sign the funding agreement. This refers to the terms and conditions that all parties read and approved during the application phase.

If you withhold this approval, you may become ineligible and your award may be withdrawn.

Your obligations

Once the funding agreement has been signed by all parties, we'll transfer the first installment to the institute. This will be done according to the disbursement schedule in the agreement.

We expect to receive interim scientific and financial reports halfway through the project. You'll receive templates for these reports in advance. As the winner, you're expected to collect financial reports from the institute and ensure we receive these documents.

We'll only pay the next installment of your grant funding if:

We've received all of your reports
Our review of them is favorable

The Fellowships and Grants Committee is responsible for reviewing all scientific reports.

Any publication arising from work funded by EHA must acknowledge EHA funding, as stated in the terms and conditions.

Amendments

Any deviations from the approved project scope or budget must be formally requested before you implement them. For guidance on this, please see the terms and conditions or email the Grants Manager at grants@ehaweb.org.

Finishing your grant period

You must submit all final reports within six weeks of your project's end date. This means both financial and scientific reports.

We'll share reporting templates with you via the grantee portal.

Your financial report must be:

Audited
Signed off by an external auditor and the institute’s financial head