Background

The ABIM Foundation’s mission is to advance medical professionalism to build trust and improve care. Professionalism reflects the commitment to serve patients and society by providing quality care and embodies values such as accountability, ethical behavior, teamwork, and collective responsibility.

Although we have sought to elaborate on the principles of professionalism through the Physician Charter, we recognize that professionalism is not a static concept. Rather, professionalism must remain responsive to the evolving challenges facing medicine, from corporatization and financialization to broader societal and policy change. We believe professionalism can serve as a steadying and unifying force in turbulent times.

As further described below, this competitive grant program is intended to support projects designed to leverage professionalism and its values as tools to address these challenges.

 

Who can apply?

In keeping with our view of professional obligations as existing at varying levels of the health system, we are open to applications from a wide variety of project leaders, including individual clinicians, clinical teams, educators, hospital and health system leaders, researchers, and patient groups. Please note that grant recipients must be tax-exempt organizations.

 

What kinds of projects are we inviting?

Funded projects could involve research, implementation, education, and/or advocacy. Broadly, we are inviting projects that promote medical professionalism as the practice of individuals, teams, and systems to foster trust, humility, respect and excellence in service of equitable, compassionate and humanistic care.

We are open to a broad variety of project ideas. The following focus areas and project ideas are intended to be illustrative:

 

Professionalism Education

• Test new ways to teach and evaluate professionalism in health professional training and learning environments that reflect professionalism today.
• Implement practical approaches (e.g., coaching, OSCEs, EPAs, case conferences, narrative/reflection) that help learners and faculty internalize ethical commitments and practice humility, compassion, integrity, and excellence in daily care.
• Identify and define clear expectations and criteria for what constitute professional value-based behaviors and how to equitably assess those behaviors and provide developmental feedback to learners.

 

Professionalism and Addressing Patient Needs

• Explore how clinicians can safeguard patient interests during periods of significant policy change that affect access to care, including how to respond when clinical guidance is revisited in ways that prompt questions or uncertainty within the scientific and medical community.
• Design and test approaches to promote equitable access by reducing structural barriers to care, including those related to insurance, cost, language, technology, scheduling and navigation.
• Address financial strain associated with care through financial assistance, community partnerships, or payment innovations that prioritize patient well-being alongside organizational sustainability.

 

Professionalism and Everyday Practice

• Identify approaches that strengthen clinician-patient communication and relationships in ways that build trust and foster understanding across differing perspectives.
• Explore how to balance the core commitments of professionalism, including patient primacy and altruism, with clinician well-being, acknowledging and addressing concerns that these expectations can at times feel misapplied or unsustainably burdensome for the workforce.
• Integrate patients more meaningfully into care teams and governance structures and elevate outcomes that reflect what matters most to patients.

 

Professionalism and Workplace Culture

• Identify initiatives and systemic changes that enable clinicians to live out professional values within financially driven environments, including reducing unnecessary administrative burdens, strengthening team norms and coaching, and promoting transparent, meaningful measures that make value-concordant care achievable in daily practice.
• Advance efforts to cultivate healthy organizational cultures that support teamwork, well-being, fairness and equitable access, foster psychological safety and protect time for relational care and meaningful physician–patient interactions.
• Examine whether workplace policies such as productivity metrics, scheduling, and resource allocation decisions align with or inadvertently undermine professional values and commitments.

 

Professionalism and Professional Self-Regulation

• Examine how professional self-regulation is perceived and practiced, clarify its role as a steward of public trust, explore ways to demonstrate its value for patients, and consider how patient perspectives can be more meaningfully integrated into its design and execution.
• Uphold fair, transparent, and consistent processes for competence assessment, peer review, and the responsible management of ethical concerns.

 

Professionalism, Uncertainty, and Emerging Technology

• Address challenges and explore opportunities for excellence and humility as we engage with emerging technology and navigate complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty exacerbated by rapid changes in the information environment (e.g., AI).

 

Again, the above examples are not intended to be an exclusive list; we are quite open to other ideas for using professionalism to address today’s health care challenges.  

 

Proposal Criteria

Projects will be evaluated based on their:

• Novelty, and the innovativeness of the proposed intervention 
• Feasibility
• Potential impact
• Replicability
• Scalability 
• Presence of intentional focus on professionalism

 

Grantee Opportunities

Grantees will participate in a learning network that will enable them to share experiences with other grantees and receive coaching on topics such as publication. Grantees may also have the opportunity to participate in or attend Foundation-sponsored convenings.

 

Grant Specifics

Grants made under this program will range from $50,000 to $100,000. Applicants can request any amount within that range and should specify the amount sought in the proposal. We expect that grants will be for a 2-year period but applicants may request a shorter grant period.

 

Informational Sessions

We will hold two sessions that will allow potential applicants to learn more about the program and ask questions. These will take place on Thursday, April 2 from 1:00-2:00PM ET and on Tuesday, April 21 from 2:00-3:00PM ET. Register for one of these sessions.

 

How to Apply

Applications should be submitted using this form. The deadline for receipt of all materials is May 21, 2026 at 11:59PM ET. We intend to provide all applicants with a decision by September 2026.

 

Proposal Requirements

The proposal should include clearly marked responses to sections A-E below and should not exceed 8 pages in length (1.5 space, 12-point font size, 1-inch margins, excluding attachments).

 

1. Heading: Include the PI name, the project title, the amount sought and the proposed grant length at the beginning of the proposal.
2. Description and Purpose of Project: Please provide a detailed description of the project, including clearly marked sub-sections that describe:
   • Methods: The methods to be used in the project (e.g., education, research, advocacy, community outreach, QI).
   • Goals & Evaluation Plan: The project’s goals and how you will measure whether they have been achieved, including any attempt to directly or indirectly measure the impact of your project on professionalism.
   • Impact/Outcomes: The expected impact and outcomes of the project, including how you expect that it will enhance professionalism in healthcare, and promote professionalism within the healthcare community.
   • Partners: Any collaborators, including community members, or subcontractors from outside your institution with whom you will work and their expected role.
   • Scalability/Replicability: How you will scale this effort and its
   • Feasibility/Barriers: The program’s feasibility, including any anticipated barriers to success and your plans to mitigate them.
   • Communications: Your plan for communicating about the project’s outcomes and impact, including submission of your work for presentation and/or publication at the completion of the project.
3. Deliverables and Timeline: Please include a distinct timeline section that includes all major tasks and deliverables to be accomplished as part of the grant and the dates by which those deliverables will be accomplished.
4. Project Team: Briefly describe the background and relevant experience of the project leader and other team members, and their expected roles in the project.
5. Budget and Budget Narrative: Please provide a budget for your project. There is not a required template, but the budget should show how the requested funds would be used. Indirect costs of up to 10 percent of the total grant amount are permitted. The proposal should also include a budget narrative section that provides a concise overview of the budget.