Guidelines

i. General Requirements for All Educational Grant Requests
ii. ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR EDUCATIONAL GRANT REQUESTS ≥ $10,000

Eligibility

Educational grants may only be provided to accredited educational providers that are academic medical centers, hospitals, medical societies, professional associations or government agencies.
Educational Grant requests can be in the form of:

• Fellowships

o Fellowships are awards that enable individual medical professionals (or professionals in training) to pursue study in his/her fields or to introduce them to related fields. Fellowships advance, synthesize, or enlarge the recipient’s special area of interest or enable the recipient to study in a different area which will extend his/her competence.
o Fellowships relate to activities such as training, further study, or research.

• Scholarships (Student Travel)

Student Travel Scholarships are educational grants to interns, residents, fellows and others who are healthcare professionals in training, to attend major educational conferences consistent with the AMA Guidelines, the AdvaMed Code, and the PhRMA Code, and who may be precluded from participating in educational activities as a result of financial hardship. Student Travel Scholarships are awarded to academic or training institutions where the institution must select recipients independent of TVCI’s input, and where the conferences are carefully selected by the academic or training institute. Appropriate educational conferences include major educational, scientific or policy-making meetings of national, regional, or specialty medical associations, such as the annual scientific meeting of the American Academy of Optometry or the American Optometric Association.

• Each educational grant request must contain ALL required completed forms and must be submitted at least 8 weeks prior to the date of the event to ensure sufficient time for review.

o THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC reserves the right to deny requests not submitted in this timeframe.
o Faxed and mailed grant submissions are no longer accepted.
o Only file types such as .doc, .xls, and .pdf may be attached with grant submissions. We do not accept zipped files (.zip).
o Grant is subject to rejection, if information is incomplete or missing.
o Receipt of a grant request by THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC does not guarantee approval of your grant request.
o Financial support may be approved for less than the amount requested.
o NOTE: Grant requests that include promotional opportunities will be rejected.

• If additional information is requested, please include the Grant ID number in the subject line of the e-mail. Also, for identification purposes, please provide the requester’s e-mail address that was provided with the original grant submission.

• Each educational grant request must contain a statement of how disclosure of financial support will be made to program participants for the educational activity. THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC recommended statement is “This program is supported in part by an educational grant from THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc., with funds provided by JJVCI.” Company logo will be provided upon request.

Upon successful submission of an educational grant request, THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC will:

• Provide a Grant ID number in a confirmation receipt immediately after the grant application is received. If you do not receive a confirmation receipt with the grant ID number, please contact the Help Desk at totalitysitemgr@its.jnj.com.
• Notify the contact person from the requesting organization regarding the status of the request (e.g. approved, declined, additional information required), and the amount approved, within 8 weeks of receipt.

• For grant requests ≥ $10,000, if approved for less than the amount requested, the applicant will be required to submit an adjusted budget template for the approved amount.

• Mail two original Educational Grant Agreements to the requesting organization for signature (for approved grant requests)

Educational Areas of Interest

• Optometry
• Ophthalmology

Exclusions

Educational Grants Cannot Be Used To Support:
Requests outside our educational areas of interest	Promotional/Sponsorship activities or Exhibits related to products of VISTAKON®
Normal organizational overhead expenses such as the purchase of computer equipment, etc.	Travel, lodging, conference expenses or honorarium for an applicant presenting a poster or paper
Programs that have already occurred	Reimbursement for physicians, staff or other attendees for the cost of obtaining CE credits
Payment to attendees in any form for their attendance or travel expenses for attending programs (including parking, mileage, etc.), with the exception of travel scholarships, outlined above under “Eligibility”.	Charitable fundraising events and charitable contributions. If you are a 501(c)3 organization seeking support, forward an e-mail message to vischaritable@its.jnj.com.

International Support

THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC does not generally support international programs. However, if the attendees are predominantly US-based, we may consider an application on an exception basis.

General Guidelines

i. General Requirements For All Educational Grant Requests

• Signed Letter of Request on organizational letterhead which includes:

o Statement of educational need for the proposed activity
o Program overview, date and location
o Accreditation information (if applicable)
o Program agenda and/or topics and faculty (confirmed or proposed, if applicable)
o Funding amount and utilization of requested funds

Other Required Forms – please ensure that templates are downloaded for each grant submission from the website, as template revisions may be made at any time.

• Budget Template Form – provided in the Forms Section on the company website

Each educational grant request must contain a statement of how disclosure of financial support will be made to program participants for the educational activity. THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC recommended statement is: “This program is supported in part by an educational grant from THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC, an affiliate of Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc. (JJVCI), with funds provided by JJVCI.” Company logo will be provided upon request.

ii. Additional Requirements For Educational Grant Requests ≥ $10,000

In addition to the General Requirements as noted above, please include a detailed explanation of the following:

• Detailed needs assessment and learning objectives for the proposed educational activity or platform, which should include information about the source(s) and methodology used to identify the educational need(s). It is strongly recommended that at least 3 separate sources are utilized to support the identified educational need.

o Examples of sources used to perform a needs assessment may include:

- Interviews
- Questionnaires/surveys
- Practice pattern analysis
- Focus Groups
- Literature review
- Previous CE activity evaluations or educational outcomes
- Quality Insurance/Quality Assurance (QI/QA) data analysis

• Program agenda and/or topics and faculty (confirmed or proposed, if applicable)
• Educational format
• Target audience
• Criteria for selecting faculty
• Description of all components that are part of the educational activity
• For educational programs with multiple components or materials a diagram or schematic is strongly recommended
• Plan for recruiting and generating program awareness
• Anticipated number of participants, including recruitment efforts
• Proposed timelines for major components and major milestones
• Funding amount and utilization of requested funds
• Any proposed educational outcomes measurements of current activity

In addition to the General Requirements as noted above, please include a detailed explanation of the following for Fellowship Grants and Scholarship Grants:

Fellowship Grants

Grants are provided only to academic or training institutions that have a bona fide selection committee to select the final recipients. The organization has sole control over selecting the beneficiaries.

• Letter of Request must:

o include selection criteria
o include the number of fellowships being requested
o include amount being used for administrative fees

• Grants must demonstrate a true need for training, including, but not limited to:

o limited expertise in a therapeutic area
o limited expertise within special populations (i.e. ethnic)
o limited expertise within a geographic area
o limited opportunities for advancements and/or technologies of medicine

• Should include educational components to also educate other fellows, residents, staff physicians, pharmacists and/or other healthcare professionals

• Should include, but not be limited to:

o specific requirements of the fellowship (activities within clinical and/or research)
o completion requirements
o benefits to patient care
o contributions to the field of study

• Funding must be commensurate with activities performed and within institutional criteria for a designated level of post-graduate year

Scholarship Grants

Grants are awarded to an academic or training institution. The institution must have a bona fide selection process, and select recipients independent of THE VISION CARE INSTITUTE®, LLC input.