RTFCCR Clinical Cancer Research Grant 2026: Eligibility, Funding & Deadline

The landscape of clinical cancer research is undergoing a dramatic shift toward patient-centered outcomes. Moving beyond purely laboratory-driven investigations, contemporary oncology demands clinical trials designed with the active input, lived experiences, and overall quality of life of the patient community in mind. The Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research (RTFCCR) stands at the forefront of this movement.

​As a philanthropic organization, RTFCCR aims to maximize patient impact by funding clinical research that delivers near-term, tangible therapeutic improvements. Rather than supporting long-term basic science or early discovery work that may take decades to commercialize, the foundation strategically invests in phase I through phase III interventional clinical trials. By targeting gaps left unaddressed by traditional commercial pharmaceutical pipelines—such as off-patent drug repurposing, optimized dosing regimens, and early non-invasive detection methods—the RTFCCR seeks to reshape the delivery of care.

​For global clinical investigators, securing funding through RTFCCR requires a distinct focus on combining top-tier biostatistics with innovative, community-backed clinical methodologies. This guide provides a comprehensive breakdown of how to navigate the application ecosystem, ensure protocol compliance, integrate patient partners, and successfully secure funding.

​Quick Summary Box

Opportunity Overview

​The RTFCCR program acts as a catalyst for high-impact oncology research that directly impacts the clinic. Rather than duplicating the mass-market investments of multinational pharmaceutical conglomerates, the foundation funds studies that optimize existing treatment paradigms or explore therapeutic options lacking commercial incentives.

​The scope of this opportunity focuses broadly on three core pillars:

1. ​Treatment Optimization: Refining existing treatment modalities to improve efficacy or lower systemic toxicity. This includes investigating alternative therapeutic combinations, modifying radiation schedules, or optimizing dosing schedules to spare healthy tissue.
2. ​Drug Repurposing: Funding trials centered on off-patent, generic, or "financial orphan" drugs. These are compounds that show significant medical promise against specific malignancies but lack the patent life necessary to secure commercial pharmaceutical funding.
3. ​Science of Early Detection and Prevention: Supporting interventional trials or advanced clinical validation studies targeting individuals at high risk for cancer development, recurrence, or progression from pre-cancerous states.

​Importantly, RTFCCR does not require applications to fit a specific malignancy type. Whether an investigator's focus is on prevalent conditions like breast or lung cancer, or ultra-rare orphan malignancies, the foundation evaluates the proposal based on its potential to quickly change patient outcomes.

​Benefits & Funding Structure

​The foundation provides stable, multi-year funding designed to ensure the rigorous execution of clinical protocols.

• ​Annual Allotment: Grants generally provide around $100,000 USD per year, depending on the size, scale, and specific resource needs of the clinical trial.
• ​Duration: Funding can be extended across the lifespan of the clinical trial, up to a maximum period of 5 years.
• ​Milestone-Driven Model: Unlike standard block grants, RTFCCR disburses funds incrementally. Capital is released contingent upon reaching preset operational milestones, such as successful institutional review board (IRB) approvals, strict compliance with safety reporting, and meeting targeted patient accrual timelines.
• ​Allowable Costs: Funding covers direct expenses necessary for trial execution. This includes non-reimbursable patient care costs, study-specific laboratory correlates, salaries for essential clinical research coordinators or data managers, and specialized equipment used exclusively for the project.
• ​Pre-Application Grants: To help investigators involve patients early in the protocol stage, RTFCCR offers a small $4,000 USD pre-application grant. This micro-grant allocates up to $1,000 for patient travel to investigator meetings and up to $3,000 to compensate patient associations or individual patient experts for their time spent shaping the grant proposal.

​Eligibility Criteria

​To maintain institutional compliance and scientific integrity, applicants must meet strict institutional and professional criteria:

• ​Professional Degree: The Principal Investigator (PI) must hold a doctoral degree (Ph.D., M.D., Pharm.D., or equivalent global credential)
• ​Institutional Appointment: PIs must have completed a formal postdoctoral or clinical fellowship and hold a faculty appointment (or equivalent) at an approved non-profit or academic research institution.
• ​Independence: The applicant must be an independent, self-directed investigator. The host institution must clearly demonstrate its commitment to the project by providing dedicated laboratory space, clinical infrastructure, and administrative support.
• ​Single-Grant Rule: PIs are restricted to holding only one active RTFCCR grant at a time. If an investigator currently has a live, funded project with the foundation, they are ineligible to apply for a new award until the current project concludes.
• ​Departure from Ongoing Work: For investigators seeking pilot funds or secondary support, the application must prove that the trial represents a meaningful deviation or evolution from currently funded work, ensuring no duplication of financial support.

​Eligible Healthcare Professions

​Given the cross-functional nature of interventional oncology trials, RTFCCR encourages collaborative proposals led by diverse medical and scientific specialists:

• ​Medical, Surgical, and Radiation Oncologists: Serving as primary clinical leads responsible for direct patient oversight, protocol adherence, and safety monitoring.
• ​Translational Scientists & Computational Biologists: Leading secondary, correlative mechanistic studies tied to the trial’s primary clinical endpoints.
• ​Clinical Pharmacologists: Essential for studies analyzing drug repurposing, novel dosing kinetics, or multi-drug interactions.
• ​Supportive Care Specialists: PIs working within psychology, palliative care, or symptom management who design interventional trials aimed at mitigating treatment toxicities and improving survivorship quality.

​IMG/International Applicant Considerations

​The RTFCCR maintains a global approach to funding cancer research. The foundation operates without geographic borders, welcoming international applications.

• ​No Citizenship Restrictions: PIs can be citizens of any nation, provided their host institution meets the administrative and non-profit criteria required to manage complex clinical funding.
• ​Global Collaboration: Multi-institutional, international consortia are highly encouraged, particularly for rare cancers where patient accrual requires multi-country recruitment networks.
• ​Language Standard: Despite the international framework, all letters of intent, full proposals, statistical summaries, and mandatory updates must be submitted entirely in English.
• ​Oversight Verification: For institutions outside of North America and Western Europe, the foundation conducts a standard verification process during the full application phase to ensure that local financial tracking and human subject protections meet international clinical standards.

​Patient Partner Involvement: The Core Mandate

​The defining feature of an RTFCCR application is the mandatory inclusion of Patient Partners. The foundation adopts the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) definition, which views patient partners as individuals with lived experience of the disease, family caregivers, or patient advocacy organizations.

​Rather than viewing patients simply as passive subjects of research, RTFCCR requires that they act as active collaborators throughout the trial lifecycle:

• ​Protocol Design: Patient partners should help select primary or secondary endpoints, ensuring that trial goals align with what matters to patients (e.g., measuring fatigue, cognitive function, or physical mobility alongside progression-free survival).
• ​Reducing Trial Burden: Advocates help review the schedule of events to ensure that the frequency of blood draws, imaging appointments, and clinic visits does not cause unnecessary dropouts.
• ​Consent and Recruitment: Patient partners help draft plain-language informed consent documents and design sensitive recruitment materials.
• ​Dissemination: Following trial completion, patient partners work alongside the scientific team to share results back to the community in an accessible format.

​Required Documents

​The application process requires clear documentation across both the Letter of Intent (LOI) and Full Proposal stages.

​For the Letter of Intent (LOI):

• ​Project Overview & Specific Aims: A concise description of the clinical trial's rationale, hypotheses, and primary/secondary endpoints.
• ​Patient Partner Integration Plan: A dedicated section outlining how patients have been, or will be, involved in designing the protocol.
• ​High-Level Budget and Timeline: A basic financial projection and accrual timeline.
• ​Investigator Biosketches: Standard NIH-style or international curriculum vitae highlighting the clinical trial management experience of the PI and co-investigators.

​For the Invited Full Proposal:

• ​Complete Clinical Protocol: The full, detailed scientific protocol, including inclusion/exclusion criteria, safety monitoring plans, and detailed drug administration routes.
• ​Detailed Biostatistical Plan: A comprehensive statistical analysis plan, including sample size calculations, power analyses, and interim analysis strategies, reviewed and signed off by a qualified biostatistician.
• ​Institutional Letter of Commitment: A formal letter from the host institution’s department chair or grants officer verifying that infrastructure, space, and resources will be provided.
• ​Patient Partner Letters of Support: Signed statements from the patient advocates or advocacy organizations involved in the study design, validating their active role.
• ​Detailed Budget Justification: An itemized, line-by-line breakdown of expenses mapped directly to trial milestones.

​Application Process

​The foundation utilizes a structured, four-step evaluation process managed via an online portal to review and award grants. 

[Step 1: Online LOI Submission via SmartSimple]
                   │
                   ▼
[Step 2: Internal Administrative & Strategic Review]
                   │
                   ▼
[Step 3: Comprehensive Peer Evaluation by GRC]
(Evaluated by Scientific Peers, Biostatisticians, & Patient Partners)
                   │
                   ▼
[Step 4: Final Approval by Board of Directors]

Step 1: Letter of Intent (LOI) Submission

​All applications begin with a Letter of Intent submitted via the RTFCCR grant management portal, SmartSimple. PIs must register their institutions before completing the online LOI forms. LOIs are accepted on a rolling basis throughout the year.

​Step 2: Internal Strategic Assessment

​Upon submission, the internal RTFCCR team reviews the LOIs during fixed evaluation periods. Applications are assessed for strategic alignment with the foundation’s mission. Proposals that focus on basic research, lack interventional clinical endpoints, or exclude patient partner engagement are filtered out at this stage. PIs with high-scoring LOIs receive an official invitation to submit a full application.

​Step 3: Peer Evaluation by the Grant Review Committee (GRC)

​Invited full applications undergo peer review by the Grant Review Committee (GRC). The GRC is an independent panel of external experts composed of three distinct perspectives:

• ​Scientific Peer Reviewers: Independent oncologists and researchers who evaluate the scientific rationale and medical innovation.
• ​A Biostatistician: An expert who evaluates the trial design, power calculations, sample size, and analytical feasibility.
• ​A Patient Partner: A reviewer with lived experience of the specific cancer type who assesses the patient relevance, consent approach, and community impact.

​Step 4: Board Approval and Activation

​The highest-ranked applications from the GRC review are scored for overall fit within the active RTFCCR portfolio. Final funding recommendations are passed to the Rising Tide Board of Directors, which meets three times per year to give final financial approval. Successful applicants are notified within one month of the board's meeting.

​Tips to Increase Your Chances

• ​Prioritize Biostatistical Rigor: Do not treat the statistical plan as an afterthought. Because a dedicated biostatistician sits on the GRC, proposals with vague sample sizes, poorly defined endpoints, or weak interim analysis plans are rarely funded.
• ​Leverage Pre-Application Funding: If your institution lacks an established relationship with patient advocacy networks, apply for the $4,000 pre-application grant. Utilizing this resources demonstrates to the reviewers that your team is committed to co-designing the study with patients from day one.
• ​Engage with the Foundation Early: For trials involving complex immunotherapies, novel checkpoint inhibitors, or combination cellular therapies, contact the administrative team at rtfccrteam@risingtide.ch before submitting your LOI to confirm alignment.
• ​Secure Institutional backing: Ensure your institution's letter of support explicitly guarantees that the PI has sufficient protected time and physical infrastructure to execute the trial without relying entirely on the RTFCCR grant for overhead costs.

​Common Mistakes to Avoid

• ​Submitting Basic or Translational Research: RTFCCR does not fund in vitro experiments, mouse models, or purely discovery-based biomarker research. If your study does not involve an active clinical intervention on human patients, it will be rejected.
• ​Treating Patient Involvement as Tokenism: Including a patient partner merely to sign off on a pre-written protocol is a frequent reason for rejection. The patient partner's input must clearly shape the study design, endpoints, or recruitment strategy.
• ​Requesting Monotherapy Funding for On-Patent Drugs: RTFCCR generally does not fund trials using expensive, on-patent drugs backed by major pharmaceutical firms. The only exception is for rare or ultra-orphan indications completely lacking therapeutic alternatives.
• ​Ignoring Portal Closure Times: The SmartSimple application portal closes precisely at 23:59 Central European Time (CET) on deadline days. Missing this window by even a few minutes due to pending institutional DocuSign signatures will delay your application to the next review cycle.

​Application Timeline

​The RTFCCR operates on a cyclical review schedule tied to its tri-annual board meetings. PIs should plan their submissions according to the following general schedule: 

[LOI Cutoff Deadline] ──► [Internal Review & Invitation] (4–6 Weeks) ──► [Full Proposal Preparation] (6–8 Weeks) ──► [GRC Peer Review] (6–8 Weeks) ──► [Board Approval & Notification] (4 Weeks)

Once a grant receives final approval from the Board of Directors, awardees are notified within 30 days. Project activation dates must be set dynamically: the absolute earliest a trial can begin drawing funds is 4 months post-deadline, while the maximum allowable window to activate the grant is 12 months following approval.

​Deadline

​While Letters of Intent can be uploaded to the SmartSimple system year-round, they are gathered for internal assessment three times per year. The upcoming cutoff deadlines are:

• ​June 22, 2026 (12:00 PM / 23:59 CET)
• ​November 23, 2026 (12:00 PM / 23:59 CET)

​FAQs

​Q: Does the RTFCCR fund Phase IV post-marketing surveillance trials?

A: No. The foundation restricts its funding to phase I, II, and III interventional trials. Phase IV trials, retrospective cohort studies, and purely observational registries are ineligible.

​Q: Can international teams apply, and are there restrictions on where the money can be sent?

A: There are no geographic restrictions. RTFCCR funds international teams worldwide, provided the host institution is a verified non-profit or academic entity capable of maintaining financial transparency and passing an administrative compliance review.

​Q: Are population-wide screening tools or companion diagnostics eligible for funding?

A: No. Within the early detection focus area, RTFCCR does not support broad population screening or companion diagnostics. It focuses on clinical validation trials of detection methods targeted strictly at high-risk populations.

​Q: What happens if our trial fails to meet its patient accrual milestones?

A: Because funding is milestone-driven, a failure to meet enrollment targets can lead to a temporary pause in fund disbursement. PIs must maintain transparent communication with the RTFCCR team to adjust recruitment strategies or extend timelines if needed.

​Official Link(s)

• ​Rising Tide Foundation Clinical Cancer Research Application Page
• ​RTFCCR Pre-Application Grant Materials
• ​Official Portal: SmartSimple Grants Management
• ​Inquiries and Protocol Discussions: rtfccrteam@risingtide.ch

​Final Thoughts

​The Rising Tide Foundation for Clinical Cancer Research offers an essential funding avenue for oncology investigators seeking to conduct practical, patient-centered clinical trials. By decoupling research from commercial incentives and prioritizing patient input, the foundation helps bring creative treatments, off-patent drug applications, and early detection protocols directly to the clinic. Securing an award requires a strong scientific framework, a clear statistical plan, and a genuine commitment to partnering with patients. For research teams ready to focus on patient-centered outcomes, navigating the RTFCCR application process provides an excellent path toward making a meaningful, near-term impact on cancer care.