a) The cover of the application should contain the header ESSM Grant for Preclinical and Clinical Research followed by the Title of the study and the Name and dated signature of the main applicant as well as his / her contact information (incl. current position, address, e-mail, phone, fax).

b) The following pages should contain a Summary of the project (maximum 300 words), Background, Aim, Methods, Ethical Permission, Form of Evaluation of Results, Importance of the study (incl. which could be the target journal to publish the study results), and co-applicants.

c) A detailed Budget, incl. disclosure of other forms of funding for the study, as well as an appropriate Time-schedule should also be included in the application.

The application should not be longer than 2500 words (double spaced letter-size 12).

A letter from the head of the department / institution granting the main applicant time and space for the conduct of the study should also be enclosed.

A CV and list of publications for the main applicant should also be included.

A specific list of publications in the field of Sexual Medicine (both preclinical and clinical), along with the impact factor of each journal, the citation index and the H-index of the first author of the application will also be provided.

The application should be sent to electronically in one copy with a PDF format by e-mail to admin[at]essm.org to the attention of the Chairman of the ESSM Scientific Committee.

Applications will be considered for the grant if they have arrived at the above address
no later than May 31st, 2013.

A confirmation email will inform applicants of the arrive of the submission itself.

Please note that the application will only be considered if the applicants are members of the ESSM in perfect order with the fulfilment of the payments.

Applications will be evaluated by the scientific committee of the ESSM along with a group of internationally-well-known experts in the field of Sexual Medicine.

In this context, as an ESSM law, both the members of the ESSM Scientific Committee and the international experts who personally or indirectly (namely, anyone from they own Departments) apply for the ESSM 2013 grant will not participate to the evaluation of any grant application.

The final evaluation and decision regarding the eventual grant winners will be made by the ESSM Executive Committee members.

In the case an application is awarded a grant, requisition of funding through ESSM Secretary corresponding to half the awarded amount may be done after the Annual Meeting of the ESSM.

Recipients (the main applicants) of the grant are expected to participate at the opening ceremony of the Annual Meeting of the ESSM where the grant will be announced. A report on the progress of the study should be submitted from the main applicant by latest 6 months after the initial payment from the ESSM. This report should contain details on how the funding has been used, overall progress of the study in relation to the submitted time-schedule and when appropriate also preliminary results, as well as a request for continued funding.

The main applicant is expected upon invitation to present results from the project at the first  ESSM Annual Meeting of following receipt of the award.

As with all the ESSM members, there is no financial cover for the registration to the Annual Congress, traveling and hosting for the presentation of the results of the studies that have obtained sponsorship or co-sponsorship funds ESSM.

Likewise, ESSM expects that all the findings of any project which has been awarded with an ESSM grant are published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, which is the official journal of the Society. In this context, each manuscript will pass through a formal peer-review process before an eventual publication. This would eventually affect the fact that the manuscripts from studies sponsored or co-sponsored by ESSM grants may also not be accepted by the The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

In all cases, the ESSM research grant should be acknowledged in each publication which may arise from the supported projects.

Whenever the awarded group does not accomplish timelines or the whole project would not comprehensively cover the items which have been reported in the original application, the ESSM may consider to have the grant amount back.