Research & Innovation Seed Grants are designed to help faculty launch innovative and collaborative research, scholarship, and creative works. Since the first seed grant competition in 2006, seed grants of up to $50,000 have been awarded to over 300 faculty researchers and research teams. To date, more than $15.5 million in grants have been awarded through this program. The promising results from seed grant-funded faculty include important research findings, new partnerships, publications, workshops, exhibits, and seminars.
Several millions in public and private funding have been awarded to further develop the research programs that were funded by the seed grants. For instance, five projects from the 2015 seed grant program that received a combined $249,985 in seed funding have already received more than $6.5 million in additional funding, equating to $25.08 in external funding gained for every $1 invested in these five projects. The quantity and quality of research findings has been outstanding.
Highlights from seed grant recipient successes:
“This is the first grant I have been a PI on. It is opening up doors for finding new ways to fund projects that go beyond my regular teaching and research duties. It has also created many collaborative relationships…” – Ajume Wingo (Philosophy)
“This seed grant was pivotal in my career progress. As the PI, I was able to collaborate with the interdisciplinary team and learn new and important skillsets, in particular social science methodologies. I used the findings as well as the skills that I gained from this project as the foundation of my NSF CAREER proposal, which I was granted last summer. They continue to serve as the foundation of a new interdisciplinary proposal that I work on collaboratively to write with several other faculty and CU and elsewhere.” – Sherri Cook (Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering)
“The support of the seed grant was critical for my Mellon/ACLS Scholars & Society Fellowship, which enabled me to work with the Scientific Evidence Committee of the Science and Technology Law Section of the American Bar Association….This partnership will be critical for my work moving forward as well as future grant proposals including NSF CAREER.” – Sandra Ristovska (Media Studies)
"This seed grant was instrumental in developing a new area of research within my group. Specifically, with the seed grant, I was able to expand our current scope of work while generating preliminary results necessary for an NIH proposal, which was funded. —Joel Kaar (Chemical and Biological Engineering)
“This editorial project has expanded the range of my expertise in Women and Gender Studies while broadening my contact with other scholars in the field here at CU Boulder, nationally, and internationally.” –Karen Jacobs (English)
"The seed grant has contributed to my career progress in several ways. First, the grant has prompted and enabled me to write several additional grant proposals, as PI and Co-PI. Second, the grant will lead to at least one significant publication, co-authored with new colleagues. Third, the grant supported me in attending an international conference on forest and livelihoods, and thus gave me the opportunity to present this work on an academic stage. Finally, the seed grant project has actively developed and strengthened new and existing collaborations, thus extending my professional network both on campus and internationally." —Peter Newton (Environmental Studies)
“[The project funded by the seed grant] has established me as one of the few planetary scientist conducting fieldwork with drones. This is a rapidly growing area of research and I am now poised at the forefront.” —Brian Hynek (Geological Sciences, Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics)
"The research enabled by the IGP award was the basis on which the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry recently appointed me as a Research Assistant Professor." —Subhadeep Roy (Chemistry and Biochemistry)
“Seed Grant support has transformed my research by allowing me to take on the risk of an entirely new direction. This work has only just begun to pay off in terms of invited talks, grants, and papers.” –Corrie Detweiler (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology)
"The seed grant funding allowed me to secure (as PI) a major interdisciplinary grant on a cutting-edge topic." —Abby Liel (Civil, Environmental & Architectural Engineering)
"The seed grant was instrumental in developing the preliminary data for a grant submitted to the NIH. This grant was recently funded." —Loren Hough (Physics)