Frequently Asked Questions

All Stanford Faculty with principal investigator (PI) eligibility may apply (i.e., members of the University's Academic Council or UML faculty).

Preference will be given to disciplines or fields that have limited internal grant program support. Applications from biomedical fields will only be considered when they include a meaningful faculty partnership with other Stanford school(s).

No. The application in Stanford Seed Funding must be submitted by the lead PI. Applications submitted by other personnel (grad students, postdocs, etc.) will not be reviewed.

This program is intended to support projects which are 1) collaborative in nature and “beyond the usual” in scale for their disciplines in terms of research scope, award budget, and team size; and 2) already defined with teams that are preparing to apply for external sponsored research funding.

The Small Propel Grants support collaborative teams who are actively developing or finalizing their proposal for external sponsored research funding in the next six months.

The Large Propel Grants support collaborative teams who need to obtain specific data or other elements to convince reviewers of feasibility for their externally funded sponsored research proposal in the next year.

Consider the readiness of your project. The Propel Grants do not support nascent projects that are still defining the research question or forming the initial team.

Disciplines or biomedical fields that already have access to ample internal funding will only be considered when they include a meaningful faculty partnership with other Stanford schools

It is up to the applicants to explain how their team, project and proposal  go “beyond the usual” in scale for their discipline. Essentially, “beyond the usual” means that the proposed effort is bigger and more collaborative than the typical “bread and butter” funding for PIs or research groups in that field. The funds support efforts that go beyond routine work to advance an individual's scientific career and are often better addressed by interdisciplinary teams.

For example, in science and engineering fields, where multi-PI collaborations are common, “beyond the usual” may be something like an NSF Center proposal (STC, ERC, PFC, etc.) or DOE Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRC). In some humanities fields, bringing together two or more collaborators to develop a large-scale project or a project that advances scholarship in more than one discipline may be considered “beyond the usual.”

Funding from the Small Propel Grants may be used for activities that will elevate your external funding application and drive it forward. Examples can include a writing day, hiring a graphic designer or scientific illustrator, conducting an expert review of your proposal draft, or another activity to make the external application more competitive. These small grants are meant to help you finalize your external grant application and to position your proposal for success.

Please see the Stanford Purchasing Policies and Guidelines if you have questions regarding allowable expenses.

Funding from the Large Propel Grants is intended to help Stanford researchers position themselves well for larger, external sponsored research funding. Activities should focus on establishing feasibility or generating additional preliminary data as needed for the externally funded sponsored research application. Activities should be specific and well-defined but can fall in a wide range and are to be determined by the PI. Examples include, but are not limited to specific research experiments, establishing access to archives, consultations with experts on evaluation or data management, and/or other elements to enhance chances of funding success.

Projects are encouraged to utilize existing institutional resources, including but not limited to Stanford Shared Facilities or the Stanford Research Computing Center.

Please see the Stanford Purchasing Policies and Guidelines if you have questions regarding allowable expenses.

Yes. Principal Investigators may be the lead on consecutive grants.

Teams may receive up to one small award and up to one large award for a given project, with a preference of only one award per team. A second award will only be considered for those teams who have proven to be good stewards of previous VPDoR-funded awards and with strong justification.

No. Principal Investigators may submit only one application for a Propel Grant as the lead PI per cycle.

Principal Investigators may submit a subsequent application in the next cycle.

Consider one of our other deadlines! We offer the Large Propel Grant twice per year, and the Small Propel Grant fare reviewed on a rolling basis every two weeks; deadlines are listed in the “Timeline” section for each.

If the work you need to do requires a longer timeframe than the Propel Grant stipulates, you can still consider applying with a strong justification of why you need more time between the Propel funds and the submission of your external funding application. Funding decisions are based on review outcomes and availability of funds.

No. Proposed budgets for the VPDoR-sponsored Propel Grants do not need to be routed through OSR/RMG because they are internally funded grants.

The Stanford Research Development Office (RDO) aims to strengthen collaborative or strategic research, scholarship, and creative activities. Please visit researchdevelopment.stanford.edu for more information about how RDO can help you.