AOTF, ASHT and AHTF: Hand in Hand Research Grant, 2026–2027
The American Occupational Therapy Foundation (AOTF), American Society of Hand Therapists (ASHT), and American Hand Therapy Foundation (AHTF) offer a competitive $50,000 research grant for one year to support early-stage, community-engaged research in occupational therapy and hand and upper-extremity rehabilitation. This is one $50,000 award, not a $50,000-per-applicant allocation from a larger grant pool. The full application deadline is November 2, 2026, 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The funder states that deadline extensions will not be granted.
Applicant and investigator eligibility
The institutional grant recipient must be an eligible U.S.-based public or private nonprofit organization or institution with an accountable research infrastructure. The principal investigator must be an early-career, credentialed occupational or physical therapist who is a certified hand therapist, with an eligible doctoral degree or advanced research training and a full-time faculty or equivalent research appointment. Applicants must satisfy the RFA’s U.S. citizenship, permanent-residence or institutional-visa eligibility provisions. Each application must include at least one occupational therapist meeting the PI criteria, a qualified research mentor, and a community partner. PIs with substantial prior extramural research awards or conflicting grant obligations may be ineligible. Private practices and unaffiliated nonprofits without an academic or equivalent research institutional relationship do not independently qualify for PI sponsorship.
Research priorities and grant conditions
Projects should strengthen evidence-based hand therapy through community participation. Relevant topics include health disparities, comparative effectiveness, validated clinical outcomes, orthosis or biophysical-agent use, rehabilitation access, and adoption of effective practices. Proposals consisting mainly of scoping reviews or meta-analyses are not supported. At least one occupational therapist and one community partner must participate substantively; the occupational therapist must serve at least as a co-investigator.
The grant funds a one-year project running July 1, 2027 to June 30, 2028. Indirect costs may not exceed 10%, and combined PI/co-PI salaries may not exceed 20% of the requested budget. Fund releases are scheduled in July 2027 and January 2028, conditioned on human-subjects oversight/exemption documentation and required progress reporting. The award permits legitimate project and community-partner research expenses; consult the award guidelines for expense exclusions and documentation. The funder does not publish a universal matching-funds requirement.
Application and required documentation
Apply using ProposalCentral through the official Hand in Hand funding page. Prepare the principal investigator and co-investigator biosketches, institutional and administrative information, mentor biosketch and commitment letter, community-partner letter of engagement, lay project summary, specific aims, research strategy and future funding plan, team engagement/dissemination plan, detailed budget and justification, institutional assurance and protection forms, and applicable human-subjects documentation and appendices. Institutional Review Board approval may follow application submission, but the project cannot start before required clearance is received. Review the controlling 2026–2027 RFA, full application instructions, and the funder’s award guidelines before submitting. If AI-generated proposal text is used, the funder requires acknowledgment in footnotes.
Submit the complete application no later than November 2, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET. This is a nonprofit research grant, not a procurement contract.