Published: April 29, 2016
Group looking at seeds

CU-Boulder’s Innovative Seed Grant program is awarding $1 million through 23 grants that take investigators in creative and sometimes high-risk, high-reward directions, like a new project exploring the relationship between climate change and political instability in the Middle East.

The awards, announced by the CU-Boulder Offices of the Provost and the Vice Chancellor for Research, are funding 23 grants of up to $50,000 each, including $250,000 for six grants supporting work directly connected to the CU-Boulder Grand Challenge. The program aims to stimulate new and exciting areas of research and creative work on the CU-Boulder campus, as demonstrated by a small sampling of the 2016 Innovative Seed Grant Program winners:

  • Climate change and political instability in the Middle East: A recurring historical pattern?
  • Generation of Novel Electronically Reconfigurable Nanomaterials
  • Connecting Everyday Experience and Cognitive Development: The Case of Less-Structured Time and Children’s Self-directed Executive Function
  • Smart Morphing Electronics for Soft Robots and Biomedical Applications
  • Improving Access to Agricultural Knowledge Through Mobile Phones: Exploring the Potential for Technology Adoption in Africa.

The selected projects represent an investment in the future research, scholarly, or artistic vitality of the university and demonstrate promise for expansion of the project goals in the future. Projects come from disciplines across the university, including those involving interdisciplinary work that will foster collaborative interaction among CU faculty, as well as disciplines not traditionally connected to sponsored research.

This year’s Innovative Seed Grant Program also provides a new and unique opportunity for faculty to become part of the campus Grand Challenge supporting Our Space. Our Future. and take the Challenge into new and exciting directions. Funding is being provided for projects that branch out and strengthen ongoing Grand Challenge work and contribute to ensuring that research at CU-Boulder creates global impact.

For more information on this program and other funding opportunities, visit the website of the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research