AOPA, under the auspices of its Orthotics 2020 program, circulated a request for proposals early in 2018 relating to 5 subject areas for original orthotic papers, with the original deadline for receipt of applications by April 30, 2018. Proposals have been received in all five of those categories. This notification is to announce a re-opening of the opportunity to submit grant applications/extension of the deadline for applications in just two of those topic areas:
(1) Back bracing; and
(2) Osteoarthritis bracing (knee).
AOPA will now be accepting applications for grants in those two areas, text of the two RFPs is available here, provided that they are received by no later than June 30, 2018 at 11:59 pm.
All grant applications that were previously submitted in these two categories will continue to be included in the pool of applications to be evaluated and considered. In all other respects, except for this extended deadline date, all terms stated in these two original RFPs remain intact and in effect.
Please review closely the terms of the RFPs. One problem we have noticed with responses is that there were multiple scoliosis applications/research protocols submitted under the RFP for back bracing. The category of back bracing is neither written nor intended to solicit submissions related to scoliosis. There may come a time when we will be looking for scoliosis papers, but this is NOT that time, so please do not commit your valuable time and energies to submitting scoliosis proposals in response to this back bracing RFP.
Osteoarthritis bracing (knee) and back bracing are two very important and primary categories in the orthotics profession. We have intentionally expanded the publication/notification /outreach to a broader audience of potential investigators toward submission of proposals in these two areas. We will encourage and will welcome all high quality submissions under these two categories, which are in accordance with the terms of the two RFPs.