The Craig H. Neilsen Foundation is proud to announce new grants totaling over $4.4 million in its Psychosocial Research portfolio. Our 2023 grantee partners are helping to expand the field of psychosocial research and include more early career investigators, as well as a mix of returning grantees, first-time recipients of Neilsen Foundation support, and postdoctoral trainees.
The Psychosocial Research (PSR) portfolio supports science that explores the intersection of social, psychological, and behavioral consequences of spinal cord injury (SCI). These factors affect quality of life, but few researchers have focused on this area. Our partner grantees are looking at the whole person, identifying ways to ease an individual’s transition back into daily life in an unfamiliar body. They consider people’s changing psychological needs and how to make sense of them, listening to how individuals want to live, and developing new tools and therapies to help them achieve their goals.
For our part, we hope to strengthen partnerships by listening to the research community and learning from it, so we can make PSR funding as impactful as possible. Over the past few years, in addition to helping our partners bridge gaps in their studies during the pandemic shutdown, we increased the funding amounts in all PSR categories. We are trying to better support the actual expenses associated with a project by acknowledging inflation, rising travel and equipment costs, as well as establishing childcare allowances. By investing in SCI researchers, we are one step closer to ensuring people affected by and living with SCI can experience full and productive lives in their communities.
We continue to be impressed by the thoughtfulness and creativity of our grantee partners. It’s great to see researchers coming back to the Neilsen Foundation, challenging themselves anew, and offering inspiring ideas. We love seeing study results leading to next steps that show progress is being made.
The portfolio includes areas of focus that continue to be high priorities for people living with SCI. Four new grants will support strategies and interventions related to the management of chronic pain. From testing the effectiveness of hypnotic cognitive therapy to the feasibility of sprint interval training, researchers’ willingness to think beyond traditional treatments speaks directly to the Foundation’s values. We are also supporting multiple studies that will focus on the wellbeing of peer mentors, to identify key factors that contribute to burnout and “compassion fatigue,” and explore how to set healthy boundaries for both mentors and mentees.
Like all Neilsen Foundation portfolios, PSR continues to support vital projects led by people who are trying to make a difference. We are proud to support these bold scientists who continue to be forward-thinking. To learn more about the types of grants funded through the PSR portfolio, you can search for funded grants on the Programs page of our website.