Sabin Snow Leopard Grant Instructions
The Sabin Snow Leopard Grants Program is a partnership between Zoo New England and the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation. This program supports in situ conservation and research projects on snow leopards. Awards of up to $15,000 per project will be made for one year.
Deadline for pre-proposals is August 15, 2024.
Eligibility
Applications may be made by individuals or institutions. In the latter case, the project leader must be identified and make the submission. Application is open to all qualified candidates, but projects led by snow leopard range country nationals and/or in-country NGOs will be given priority.
Priorities
Emphasis will be given to requests for field conservation and research activities including:
- Interventions that directly and immediately mitigate threats to snow leopards, particularly activities that measurably reduce losses of snow leopards due to human-wildlife conflict, illegal trade, loss of natural prey, habitat degradation, and so on.
- Research and monitoring: We support basic and applied research that addresses regionally or globally significant knowledge gaps in snow leopard conservation and ecology (including evaluating the impacts of conservation activities), as well as demonstrably rigorous monitoring and/or exploratory survey efforts that advance the goals of the PAWS initiative.
Budget Guidelines
The maximum allowable request is $15,000. Zoo New England will consider local salaries, per diems, and stipends for local field personnel only; we will not fund salaries for core administrative and management personnel. Zoo New England also does not support conferences, travel to scientific meetings, legal actions, overhead costs, academic exchanges, or captive breeding.
Graduate students are eligible to apply for field and project costs; tuition, bursaries, university living costs, etc. will not be considered by the Sabin Snow Leopard Grants Program.
Evaluation Criteria
Projects are evaluated on a competitive basis. Pre-proposal and applications are reviewed by a committee of experts. Projects are evaluated in terms of the:
- Relevance to snow leopard conservation
- Scientific merit and value
- Community engagement (where applicable)
- Quantitative rigor (where applicable; for example, full applications that incorporate camera trap surveys should demonstrate that proposed study designs are suitable for estimating target parameters using simulation-based study design resources such as those produced to support PAWS)
Proposals should be tightly focused on what can and will be completed with the funds requested. The more competitive proposals are those that are focused on a few, achievable objectives.
If you have previously received a Sabin grant for your project and are applying for further funding, please clearly show how the project is making progress toward its stated outcomes.
How to Apply
The application process opens with a call for pre-proposal. The pre-proposal asks for the title and location of the proposed project, the project budget, the amount requested from Zoo New England, and an abstract of the project (all in English). Qualified applicants who submit pre-proposals for projects that appear to be a good fit for the program will be asked to submit a full application and supporting documents.
Apply Today
We thank the Andrew Sabin Family Foundation for their support of this important initiative.
