Guidelines for a Letter of Support/Collaboration Request

How NASCIC’s Project Review Committee (PRC) evaluates requests for a Letter of Support/Collaboration (LOS).

The PRC reviews LOS requests to confirm meaningful engagement with the SCI community, eliminate tokenism, and ensure authenticity, fairness, and alignment with NASCIC’s mission across research, care, cure, and policy.

How Letter of Support/Collaboration Requests Are Reviewed

  1. Project Authenticity & Contacts

    The LOS reports key information including: address and contact information, organization information, and Review Board involvement noted where applicable.

  2. Project Summary and Funding

    The LOS provides a clear summary of the project in plain language and identifies funding sources, if applicable.

  3. Impact and Knowledge Mobilization Plans

    The LOS will describe how project findings/outcomes will be shared and the intended impact of those findings on research, care, cure, and/or policy for the SCI community.

  4. SCI Community Engagement

    The LOS cites, references, or demonstrates genuine and meaningful engagement with the SCI community across the project scope. The engagement demonstrates decision-making power and explicitly avoids tokenism. Individuals will be compensated for their time on the project. Refer to the IKT Guiding Principles website.

  5. Declarations

    The submitter has reviewed and agreed to the statement of Declarations:

    I understand that approval of this request is subject to meeting the NASCIC LOS Guidelines. I have reviewed the guidelines and agree to: (a) Seek input from PLEX in all relevant phases of the project, and (b) Compensate PLEX for their time.

    I understand that if the project is funded and support from NASCIC is needed for research recruitment or project engagement, then a separate Research Recruitment Request or Project Partnership Request form would need to be filled out. All project requests would be subject to review and approval by the NASCIC Project Review Committee. All types of engagement are subject to the NASCIC Fee Schedule (available upon request).

These guidelines help ensure alignment with NASCIC’s mission and ethical best practices.