• Seed Grants
• Idea Leadership Fund
• Team Proposal Development Fund
• Travel Award to Visit Funding Agencies

UMass Lowell - Worcester Polytechnic Institute 2019 Seed Funding Initiative

The leadership of the University of Massachusetts Lowell and Worcester Polytechnic Institute are committed to leveraging our respective strengths to foster productive and sustainable interdisciplinary collaborations among our faculty and students. To support this goal, UMass Lowell and WPI will jointly provide up to $20,000 per project to support intramural collaborative projects for research teams comprised of faculty from both institutions.

This initiative is intended to support new collaborations, novel discoveries, increased external funding, future industry partnerships, and possibly, the development of patentable intellectual property.  Priority for funding will be given to new collaborations, projects that include multiple UMass Lowell and WPI faculty, projects that include more than one discipline, and projects that are likely to lead to external funding and/or commercialization/industry partnerships.

Deadline: April 12, 2019. To apply or to review complete details, please visit the Research & Innovation Opportunities Portal.

Seed Grants

The goal of this fund is to support faculty in:

1. developing multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborative efforts leading to sustainable research and scholarship;
2. generating preliminary results and supporting innovative ideas leading to external funding and long-term success;
3. in generating high-quality scholarship and creative works leading to external recognition and long-term success. Larger team efforts should consider the Team Proposal Development Fund and/or the IDEA Leadership Fund for support.

Proposals that involve collaborations across multiple colleges/schools are particularly encouraged to apply. The budget for submitted proposals should not exceed $10,000.

Deadline: typically in early February. Apply when available through our Research & Innovation Opportunities Portal.

Idea Leadership Fund

InterDisciplinary Exchange & Advancement Initiative (IDEA) solicits proposals from associate professors to support innovative research, scholarly, and interdisciplinary collaboration around a theme at UMass Lowell. Each IDEA proposal includes a project leader and a diverse group of faculty and other researchers from across the university (up to 6 post-doctoral participation people in addition to the project leader) who share research and/or creative activity interests and will develop a plan for research and creative activity. The collaboration may take a variety of forms such as developing a proposal for a campus research center, a proposal for a funded proposal, a performance or exhibit, a book proposal, or a new academic programmatic area. It is expected that the principal investigator and her/his collaborators will complete planning for one activity within 6 months of receiving the award and that the collaboration will result in a product within the following six months. Other products may result from the IDEA collaboration, but the project leader is required to bring one project to completion within a year. In addition, each IDEA leader will participate in leadership development provided by the Center for Women and Work.

Deadline: typically in early February. Apply when available through our Research & Innovation Opportunities Portal.

Team Proposal Development Fund

The goal of this fund is to provide facilitator, meeting, and travel costs for teams from UMass Lowell to develop and expand multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary collaborations with researchers from other UMass campuses and universities within and beyond Massachusetts, industry partners, and non-profit organizations. These collaborations should foster sustainable research and scholarship and increased external funding for research. It is expected that each awarded collaborative team will submit a proposal for mid- or center-scale collaborative (e.g., UMass Science and Technology Initiatives Fund (President's S&T), NSF/ERC, etc.), with UMass Lowell as the lead institution, within 2 years of receiving funds.

Deadline: Applications will be reviewed as received. Apply now through our Research & Innovation Opportunities Portal.

Travel Award to Visit Funding Agencies

The goal of this award is to provide the opportunity for faculty to meet with program officers from federal agencies to discuss proposals and to attend agency organized or sponsored grants conferences.

Deadline: Applications will be reviewed as received. Apply now through our Research & Innovation Opportunities Portal.

UMCCTS Life Sciences Moment Fund

The University of Massachusetts Center for Clinical and Translational Science (UMCCTS) Life Sciences Moment Fund supports projects that are inter-campus in orientation and directed toward life sciences projects related to clinical and translational research. Current and future projects supported by this fund are envisioned to advance the therapeutic, device, intervention, etc. under study along the translational pipeline. The fund serves to spur inter-campus collaboration and strengthen the University’s research portfolio in clinical and translational research. To support this mission, projects must include at least one investigator from the UMass Worcester campus and a collaborator from at least one of the other UMass campuses. By providing seed funding to outstanding faculty members, this fund facilitates the development of faculty-to-faculty networks within the University system, thereby leveraging the considerable expertise and resources that exist on the individual campuses. It is assumed that successful projects will attract additional funding from extramural sources.

Eligibility: Projects must include at least one investigator from the UMass Worcester campus and a collaborator from at least one of the other UMass campuses.

Letter of Intent due: typically in early January. Apply when available through the UMass Medical School Portal.