2023-2028 Funding Strategy
looking back
We in the California Breast Cancer Research Program are focused on identifying opportunities to leverage our resources to make the maximal impact on breast cancer. With revenues from the tobacco tax that funds the program expected to decline by 23% over the next five years, we are redoubling our efforts to make sure every dollar spent will support this goal. In April 2023, in partnership with our California Breast Cancer Research Council, we completed a comprehensive evaluation of our funding strategy. We refined our criteria for defining a successful program, assessed the impact of our current strategy on preventing, treating, and living with breast cancer, identified the research gaps to fill, and unique California resources for CBCRP to draw on to create a successful funding strategy.
As part of this process, we surveyed stakeholders and analyzed how CBCRP grantees have leveraged research to bring more resources to California and to develop their findings to bolster our understanding of breast cancer and develop tangible outcomes to combat it. The analysis determined that while CBCRP successfully supported research that fulfilled and exceeded our program goals, the current funding strategy would not be sustainable considering the financial forecast for the next five years. Therefore, we crafted a new funding strategy that would maintain our core values and focus on the areas where CBCRP would contribute to unique spaces in the breast cancer funding landscape.
moving forward
CBCRP will continue to devote 50% of the research portfolio to support coordinated, directed, and collaborative research that addresses strategic needs in breast cancer research. CBCRP will also continue to support IDEA awards, Community Research Collaboration Pilot awards, Conference awards (both Standard and Community-Led), Policy Initiative Research and Diversity Supplements on an annual basis. CBCRP will continue to give programmatic priority to projects that will impact health outcomes and to support projects by and about people who have been historically underserved and underrepresented in breast cancer research but will also prioritize projects that address questions that specifically impact Californians and/or leverage resources that are unique to California.
Beginning in 2024 (Cycle 31) CBCRP will discontinue the Translational Research award and increase investments in our IDEA and Community Research Collaboration awards. We will launch a new award, the Community Research Collaboration Planning Award, which will be offered in alternate funding cycles with the Community Research Collaboration Full Awards (see the timeline of CBCRP award types for cycles 30-34). By consolidating our award offerings and adjusting the cadence of when they are offered, we expect to continue supporting the critical contributions that Californians make to solving breast cancer.
