The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) at Stony Brook University has made its largest investment in seed funding over the course of the current fiscal year.
Since the summer of 2022, the office has funded 32 projects across the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Renaissance School of Medicine, School of Health Professions, and School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, totaling $1.7 million.
The OVPR Seed Grant Program aims to give Stony Brook University faculty a competitive edge in securing external research funds by supporting innovative scientific and scholarly activities that generate proposals optimized for success. Funded projects range from proof of concept or feasibility studies to the development of interdisciplinary teams that burgeon into large, collaborative research projects.
OVPR has managed 12 funding cycles and provided a total investment of nearly $5.5M to SBU-led research projects since the program’s inception in 2018. Those internally funded projects have since resulted in nearly $36 million in sponsored awards for a five-fold return on investment.
“The main mission of OVPR is to support the development of research activities,” said Vice President for Research Richard Reeder. “The OVPR Seed Grant Program is one of our most important tools, and it allows our researchers to develop new ideas and strongly position themselves to successfully compete for external funding. Expanding this program is one of my main priorities as VPR.”
All cycles of the OVPR Seed Grant Program, including special initiative cycles, are managed by staff in the Office of Proposal Development (OPD) in OVPR.
The Spring 2023 Seed Grant Awards funded 13 studies for a total investment of $700,000. Among the recipients are a marine sciences and geology team reconstructing paleo-fisheries, a radiologist developing safe, effective radiation treatments, and a multidisciplinary team working to measure and improve cognitive function after traumatic brain injuries.
The Summer 2022 Seed Grant Awards distributed $1 million to 19 projects, including an evaluation of sleep, fatigue and depression among students, and an initiative to transform local libraries into hubs of community resilience.
