College of Engineering Collaborative Research Seed Grant

About the Grant 

The College of Engineering Research Seed Grant program is designed to catalyze high-impact, interdisciplinary research collaborations that are competitive for major federal funding opportunities. The program provides up to $50,000 per award to support teams of at least two principal investigators (PIs) from distinct research areas, encouraging cross-disciplinary innovation and collaboration.

Seed funding is intended to support the development of preliminary results, with priority placed on funding a graduate student for up to one year. In addition to student support, allowable expenses include travel for visits to funding agencies, publication costs, laboratory materials, and up to 0.5 month of summer salary per PI/Co-PI. Faculty summer salary is limited to those without sufficient support from other sources and must be requested in conjunction with graduate student support. No student or faculty salary from existing grants may be released to use the seed grant.

The resulting early-stage outcomes are expected to enhance the team’s competitiveness for external funding. As a key requirement, awardees must submit at least two federal research proposals within one year of receiving the grant, each with a minimum budget of $800,000. Through this structure, the program aims to promote sustained research growth, strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration, and increase the College’s success in securing large-scale federal awards.

Guidelines for Applications:

The program accepts proposals on a semiannual basis, with submission deadlines of January 1 and July 1 each year. Applications will be reviewed promptly, and funding decisions will be announced within one month of the deadline. For selected proposals, the applicants’ department chairs and unit/business managers will also be notified.

Applications must be submitted through the designated portal and include the following materials:

• • Project title
  • Names of the PI and CO-PI(s), with the lead PI required to be a faculty member with in the college of engineering
  • Name of the unit/business managers 
  • Total funding request, including and ORS budget calculation spreadsheet (F&A must be set to 0%, and the total request must not exceed $50,000)
  • Identification of two target RFAs, along with their respective deadlines
  • A one-page project summary
  • A project description of up to five pages 

Q&A

1.  Q: Regarding the project description, is there any style (e.g., task-driven or hypothesis-driven) that the review committee favors?

• • A:  No specific requirements, but the project description should match, as much as possible, the style/expectation of the external funding opportunities being pursued. 

2. Q: Besides the questions outlined in the designated portal, is there any special section that we need include in the project description document?

• • A: No specific requirements, but the project description should match, as much as possible, the style/expectation of the external funding opportunities being pursued. 

3. Q: I plan to apply with a collaborator from another college/institution. Do I need a letter of support from them? And do they need to submit an application separately?

• • A: A support letter would be sufficient. It is beneficial to have collaborators from other colleges/institutions, but they cannot directly receive funds from the seed grant project. 

 

 

For inquiries about the funding process, please reach out to receptionist.coe@ttu.edu