2026 ACNP Career-Spanning Mentorship Award

Open: July 7, 2026
Deadline: July 27, 2026

Award recipients will be notified by email in August/September.

The purpose of this Career-Spanning Mentorship Award is to create and nurture sustained Mentor-Mentee teams while involving the ACNP’s most senior, established members.  The award will provide funds ($2,000 for each team member, plus a $100 meal voucher [$4,100 total] to offset costs of attending the ACNP Annual Meeting in-person and enabling a face-to-face meeting for lunch/dinner).  For this pilot program, each award will be three years.  Applications are intended to offer great latitude in making the case for supporting a Mentor-Mentee team.

This is a highly competitive award with only one award given each year. In 2025, there were 47 applications. For 2026, award eligibility has been refined to better align with the unique goals of this program. Please read carefully below the new eligibility requirements.

Requirements and Eligibility (NEW for 2026):

1. Mentors
   • Must be an ACNP Fellow Emeritus. Please click here to view the 2026 Fellow Emeritus membership list (with current Council members removed).
   • Can only sponsor one mentee.
2. Mentees
   • Must be a past travel awardee or ACNP Associate Member.
   • Must be at least a 2^nd year post-doctoral fellow (both MDs and PhDs), 3^rd or 4^th year residents on a research track, or faculty at an Assistant Professor or Instructor level (or similar).
3. The Team
   • Must be new.
   • Existing and/or re-constituted teams will not be considered.
   • Each member must be present for the whole annual meeting (Sunday-Wednesday) or the award will be forfeited.
4. The Award cannot be held in parallel with another travel award (but can replace existing award).
5. Mentee Application
   • Applications are intended to offer great latitute in making the case for supporting a mentee-mentor team.
6. Mentor Application
   • Mentors should provide an “intention to participate” letter to the Mentee to upload in the application. The Mentor must state in the letter that they agree to the mentorship plan submitted by the Mentee, attest that they will attend the January 2027 Annual Meeting for in-person attendance, confirm intent to participate and engage with Mentee for the next three years if selected (2027, 2028, and 2029), and confirm intent to attend the next three annual meetings in-person (January 2027 Annual Meeting, January 2028 Annual Meeting, and December 2028 Annual Meeting).