Seed Funding Program
2012-2013 OSU Materials Seed Grant Program
The 2012-2013 OSU Materials Seed Grant Program RFP is now available.
Letters of Intent are due March 19, 2012 and full proposals are due April 16, 2012.
For full proposal preparation instructions for all three funding tiers, click here for the 2012-2013 Request for Proposals
The three Funding Tiers are:
1. Proto-IRG Grants, which provide funds up to $100,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one Principal Investigator (PI) and two Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs), and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming new Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) that could be incorporated into the CEM renewal proposal in 2013.
2. Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants, which provide funds up to $60,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI and one Co-PI, and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming multidisciplinary materials research teams that can compete effectively for federal block-funding opportunities.
3. Exploratory Materials Research Grants, which provide funds up to $40,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI, and may have Co-PIs and/or unfunded collaborators, with the goal of enabling nascent materials research to emerge to the point of being competitive for external funding.
The Proto-IRG awards are designed to support research by small interdisciplinary groups of 3 to 4 principal investigators (PIs) with the explicit intention of incubating the next generation of full IRGs (constituting 6-10 PIs) within 2 years. The idea behind incubating Proto-IRGs at this stage is to stimulate interdisciplinary research with the potential to develop into full-scale (IRGs) at the time of renewal of the CEM (June 2013).
Although not required for proto-IRGs, a strong synergy between experimental and theoretical components is essential for full IRGs. Applicants are encouraged to review the most recent MRSEC call from the NSF for further details as to what is expected of a fully developed IRG. An open workshop exploring what makes a successful proposal team will be held in early winter 2012. In Winter 2013 the CEM will hold an internal competition to downselect a total of 4 to 5 IRGs that will form the CEM renewal proposal to NSF. This competition will be open to all OSU faculty independent of participation in this Seed Program.
Potential applicants may contact the Seed Board Chair Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin (ejh@mps.ohio-state.edu, 614-247-4074) for questions related to potential research activities.
Seed Funding Program Board
Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin, Assistant Professor/Director of ENCOMM, Department of Physics
Gunjan Agarwal, Associate Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering
Suresh Babu, Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Anne Co, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
Josh Goldberger, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry
David McComb, Professor, Ohio Research Scholar, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Michael Mills, Taine G. McDougal Professor of Engineering, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
Michael Paulaitis, Ohio Eminent Scholar, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Michael Poirier, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics
Siddharth Rajan, Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Nandini Trivedi, Professor, Department of Physics
Pat Woodward, Professor, Department of Physics
Fengyuan Yang, Associate Professor, Department of Physics