The Foundation’s mission is to improve human health by supporting and disseminating pharmacotherapeutic and clinical pharmacy research, scholarship, and practice through delivering value to its stakeholders, advancing and disseminating scholarship through ACCP’s official journals, and supporting pharmacotherapeutic and clinical pharmacy research. (View the full strategic plan.)

Futures Grants: Mentored Research Awards

The Futures Grants program for student, trainee, and early-career ACCP members is designed to support the development of research skills and establish sustained interest and careers in pharmacy research. The new amounts for Futures Grants awards will range from $20,000 to $80,000, depending on applicant eligibility and budget approval. Up to $100,000 in mentored, developmental research awards is expected to be distributed through the Futures Grants program in 2026.

The next grant application cycle will open May 15, 2027, and completed applications will be due no later than September 1, 2027. The Grant Award Committee will base its decisions on the overall impact and merit of the proposed research, the potential for the applicant to succeed as an investigator, and the experience of the mentor in research and research training. For more information about this grant award program, visit www.accpfoundation.org/futures.

The 2026 Futures Grants application period closed September 1, and award recipients will be announced by November 15, 2026.

Investigator Development

The Foundation’s investigator development efforts continued in June 2026 on the campus of the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Nineteen mentees and mentors spent a productive week crafting and refining research projects. 

Mentored Research Investigator Training (MeRIT) Program

This one-of-a-kind training program is designed to help pharmacists develop the abilities necessary to conduct investigator-initiated research, either independently as a principal investigator or as an active co-investigator within a research team. Ideal candidates for the MeRIT Program are pharmacy faculty or practitioners with limited research experience who are:

• Committed to incorporating research into their professional careers;
• Interested in generating research themes or obtaining preliminary data for larger funding opportunities; and
• Aspiring to be active principal investigators or co-investigators within a research team.

MeRIT is a 2-year longitudinal program that uses a combination of live and virtual teaching and mentoring methods to provide trainees with the support and education they need throughout the research experience (ie, from idea, proposal development, funding application, and project completion to presentation and publication). The application period for the 2027 MeRIT Program will open in November 2026, with letters of intent due February 28, 2027, and full applications due March 31, 2027.

Focused Investigator Training (FIT) Program

The Foundation’s flagship pharmacist investigator development program will also convene in the summer of 2027. If you plan to submit (or resubmit) a research proposal to the NIH or other major foundation/organization funding source, FIT should be on your agenda.

This 5-day, intensive, hands-on program has a strong history of participant success because it pairs experienced and funded faculty mentors with investigator-participants. The program is geared to fine-tune R-type investigator-initiated proposals and K-type career development awards. The ideal applicant is a mid-career, fellowship-trained, tenure-track or research-focused pharmacist. The application period for the 2027 FIT Program will open in November 2026, with letters of intent due February 28, 2027, and full applications due March 31, 2027.

More information on MeRIT and FIT is available on the Foundation’s website here.

Support the ACCP Foundation Initiatives

Gifts to the ACCP Foundation, Ltd. can be made to support pharmacotherapeutic and practice-based research, practice advancement/transformation, or dissemination of research/scholarship. Contributions may be mailed, made directly online, donated as an ACCP honorarium, gifted through a donor-advised fund granted through employer matching gift programs, incorporated into estate planning, or made as a qualified charitable distribution from an individual retirement account or charitable trust. The Foundation is also receiving gifts in recognition of Michael Maddux, Pharm.D., FCCP, for his 23-year service as executive director of ACCP and lifetime of service to the improvement of human health through the advancement of clinical pharmacy. Donations will support investigator training and mid-career clinical pharmacy research grants. The ACCP Foundation, Ltd. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 04-2720360). Please contact Keri Sims ([email protected]) for more information.