Collaborative Seed Grants

Purpose

The purpose of the TPT Collaborative Seed Grants program is to increase research and creative capacity by funding teams of interdisciplinary researchers pursuing curiosity-driven, high-risk, high-reward projects in their early stages of development. By supporting innovative research and creative projects, the program aims to increase the competitiveness of future interdisciplinary proposals for external funding and fuel discoveries that address complex research questions and/or enhance our human experience. Collaborative Seed Grants proposals must include at least two eligible faculty investigators from different disciplines.

Size of Award and Budget Guidelines

Discovery Seed Grants will provide up to $60K over 12 months. Allowable expenses include:

Expenses associated with project specific domestic travel to meet with external collaborators.
Include a budget table and a brief budget justification describing the anticipated allocation of requested seed funding (i.e., the percentage of funds allocated to the different budgetary categories).

Personnel costs: Salary and benefits for Research Associates, Postdoc, or Graduate Students (stipend, tuition, and required fees) to support data collection or analysis. Faculty salary support is not allowable.

Research supplies and expenses associated with preliminary data collection and other project deliverables.

Proposal Requirements and Review Criteria

Proposals must include the information outlined below. Font size of text should be no smaller than 11 points. Proposals that do not follow these guidelines will be returned without review.

Proposal Title: Provide a title for the proposal.

Principal Investigator: Provide the name, affiliation, and contact information of the Principal
Investigator (PI).

Co-Principal Investigators: Provide the name, affiliation, and contact information of each CoPrincipal Investigator (Co-PI). There is no limit to the number of Co-PIs.

Interdisciplinary Expertise of Proposal Team (maximum of 500 words): Provide a brief statement
of each Texas A&M PI/Co-PI’s role and responsibilities on the proposed project, specific skills,
and evidence of interdisciplinary complementary expertise.

Proposal Summary: Provide a 250-word summary including significance and impact.

Project Narrative (maximum of three pages): Provide a narrative understandable to a nonspecialist describing the challenge(s) to be addressed and the high-risk/high-reward concepts
being proposed. Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

1. Significance and Impact, including an explanation of the challenge(s) to be addressed, intellectual merit and significance, expected outcomes and impact of the work on the society, and the anticipated contribution to the research mission of Texas A&M University. Provide a timeline of proposed activities for which the team is seeking grant funds. (20 points).
2. Proposal Team: Include a brief statement of the role(s) of team members on the proposed project and how their expertise or background prepares them for the execution of the proposed work. (10 points).
3. Extramural Funding Opportunity, including identification of potential extramural proposal opportunities to which the project (if successful) will be submitted by the end of the grant period. Proposals must list at least two specific current/active funding opportunities published by federal funding agencies, state of Texas, or private sponsors as primary and secondary (alternative) extramural targets. This must include sponsor name, target program, anticipated RFA release, and estimated date for proposal submission by the team to the funding program. (10 points).

Budget: Include a budget table and budget justification (maximum of two pages).

References (not included in the page limit): All work cited in the proposal should be referenced.

Biosketch: Append a maximum two-page biosketch/CV for the PI and each Co-PI.

Note: Proposals that do not meet the above requirements/criteria will be returned without review.