Spring Cycle Pre-Review Deadline: March 7

Spring Cycle Deadline: April 7

If the above dates fall on the weekend or a holiday, applications will be due the next business day. 

The goal of the Research Seed Grant Program is to assist faculty in generating preliminary data that can be used to support applications for extramural funding. Research Seed Grants (RSG) are evaluated for scientific merit by the Grant Review Committee (GRC).

I. Eligibility Highlights
Faculty members in the SOM are eligible to be principal investigators.  A faculty member must be a full-time employee (51%) at the assistant professor level (including Research and Clinical Assistant Professor, Lecturer and Instructor) or above. Volunteer faculty members are not eligible.

II. Financial Support Highlights:
-A maximum budget of $15,000 can be requested.
-The funding period is limited to one year. Spring Cycle start date: June 1; Fall Cycle start date: January 1.
-Salary support for personnel such as post docs, researchers and graduate students is acceptable with justification.  Faculty salaries are ineligible.
-Equipment, defined as durable items costing over $5,000, is not allowable.
-The Final Report Form is due to the ADR Office within 60 days of the grant end date.  Faculty who do not submit this report will lose eligibility for future awards.

III.    Allocation Priorities:
A. The applications will be evaluated and prioritized based on scientific merit by the GRC.
B. Award recipients will be determined by the Allocation Committee with primary consideration given to the RSG scientific merit score.  This score incorporates consideration of the likelihood that the proposal will generate external funding for the project. 

IV.     Funding Sources:
Endowments or gifts to SIU Foundation accounts and special emphasis accounts are available to fund RSG applications.  Applications relevant to these funding sources are encouraged.  However, allocation of funds from these accounts is at the discretion of the Allocation Committee and based on funding source stipulations:  PIs do not designate funding sources and GRC scientific merit review will not consider funding sources in deliberations.

A list of potential grants and endowments are listed below along with their research focus or purpose:

  • Patient-Oriented Grant (POG): To promote any level of the translational research continuum from bench research through clinical research and into application into the community.  To be eligible for this funding mechanism, proposals must make use of human subjects, samples, data, or environments.
  • Team Development Grant (TDG): To promote new research collaborations with potential translational impact.  To qualify as a new team, faculty may not have previously published together as co-authors.  Collaborations of clinical and basic science personnel and team members from different departments are particularly encouraged and will be viewed as strengths.  All members of the team must have well-defined roles on the project. 
  • Discovery Science Grant (DSG) To facilitate the generation and/or analysis of large data sets for purposes of hypothesis generation.  NIH study sections often view such applications as ‘fishing,” whereas many unique discoveries and testable hypotheses can arise from this approach.  SIUSM does not have a core facility for generating these types of data.  The DSG will allow faculty to outside resources to generate and analyze large data sets (e.g., by procuring samples for and conducting genotyping, microarray analysis, etc.) or to interrogate existing databases.  For this budget, contractual service costs up to $15,000 are allowed.  DSG proposals must clearly explain the research question and how the proposed assessment may lead to novel hypotheses suitable for development of an NIH grant.  Attention must be given to sound experimental design and data analysis, including statistical assessments.  Collaborations between faculty to generate and use a given data set are encouraged and will be viewed as strengths. 
  • Monjoiner Endowment: Schizophrenia research
  • Illinois Health Improvement Association Endowment: Diabetes and Alzheimer's disease research
  • Malan-Harris Endowment: Neurological diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson’s, Arthritis, and Multiple Sclerosis research
  • Eskridge Bequest: Heart disease research
  • Simmons Cancer Institute Funds: Various types of cancer research
Instructions

V.    Submission of Applications: 
The application submission process has been moved to RedCap. Use the below link to access the RedCap application. Please use the templates below (RSG Budget Template and RSG Application Template). 

Research Seed Grant Application on RedCap: https://redcap.siumed.edu/surveys/?s=9DXP8MKWFJJJ9XTD 

Pre-Review

Spring Cycle Pre-Review Deadline: March 7


Clinical or unestablished grant writers may submit proposals for pre-review. 
Contact the ADR Office (grants@siumed.edu) immediately if interested. 

Full Internal Funding Guidelines