2025 Stanford Global Health Seed Grants - Call for Proposals

Program Priority Areas

Preference will be given to research teams that include more than one discipline (another department or school) and reflect the Center for Innovation in Global Health’s major initiatives and funders’ priorities:

• Global Health:  Interdisciplinary, solutions-oriented research that seeks to improve health in low-resource settings
• Human and Planetary Health:  Research that addresses the health implications of climate change or other forms of environmental degradation
• Global Maternal and Child Health:  Projects that seek solutions to improve maternal and child health in low-resource settings
• Global Emergency Medicine:  Projects that support innovative research in emergency medicine in low-resource settings
• Global Surgery:  Projects to develop or support educational programs, research, or innovations that improve global surgical care
• Global Ophthalmology:  Projects that support research to improve global eye health
• Local Community Engagement:  Solutions-oriented, community-driven research to support climate resilience by preventing and mitigating environmental harms and improving access to a healthy and safe environment for immigrant or indigenous communities, preferably in the Bay Area or California
• Global Pediatric Palliative Care:  Projects that support innovative research in pediatric palliative care in low-resource settings
• Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine:  Projects that support educational programs, research, or innovations to improve global anesthesiology, perioperative, critical care, and pain medicine
• Pathology:  Projects that support innovative research in pathology in low-resource settings

 Eligibility

1. All Stanford Faculty with PI eligibility may apply.  This call is open to Faculty from all seven schools.  Post-doctoral fellows, clinical trainees, instructors, and research scientists/scholars must identify a faculty mentor and then may be included as co-PIs.
2. Projects that create new interdisciplinary collaborations are encouraged. Teams may include investigators in off-campus partner institutions, including in Low- or Middle-Income Countries. Teams may also partner with nonprofit organizations, industry or government officials.

 * At this stage, you do not have to prepare a PIF, a PDRF form or work with your institutional representative (RPM or OSR)

Amount of funding

$10,000 - $50,000 for 18 months.

We encourage investigators to consider submitting requests for less than the maximum, as this will enable us to award more grants.

Funders include:

• the Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health
• the Woods Institute for the Environment
• the Maternal and Child Health Research Institute
• the Office of Community Engagement)
• the School of Medicine (SOM) Dean's office
• the SOM Departments of Anesthesiology, Perioperative, and Pain Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Medicine, Ophthalmology, Pathology, Pediatric Palliative Care, and Surgery

Budget Guidelines

Award amounts are based on analysis of a detailed budget request. 

• Funds may be used for salary support of graduate students, postdocs, and other research staff. (Faculty PI support is not allowable.)
• Eligible budget items include:  operating supplies, equipment items, communications expenses, meeting costs, prototyping expenses, imaging time, and travel directly associated with the research activity.
• The grants will not support general (non-research-related) staff, administrative support, or tuition.
• No indirect charges need to be included in your budget.

Submission Guidelines

All information must be submitted through SlideRoom.

Each proposal must include:

1. Basic information:
   • Project title
   • One-paragraph summary
   • Priority Area(s)
   • Each team member’s name, email, professional title, and department and school affiliation(s)
2. Proposal:
   • Introduction
   • Specific aims
   • Preliminary data (if available)
   • Proposed project design and methods
   • Collaboration plan:
     • how the multi-disciplinary team will work together
     • the history of your relationship with any external/community partners
   • Description of potential for impact and follow-on funding
3. Supporting material:
   • Literature cited
   • Itemized budget with brief budget justification

   • Short (150 words max) bio-sketches for team members including faculty PI(s)

      

Selection Criteria

The Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health and funders will review proposals based on:

• Scientific merit of the proposal, with quality, innovation and creativity balanced by likelihood of success
• Interdisciplinary nature of the project and research team, including international collaborations where appropriate
• Likelihood that results or solutions will lead to improved health among vulnerable populations
• A persuasive case that results would lead to scale-up, and/or catalyze further funding from external sources
• Involvement of Stanford trainees and/or students; global health career development
• Alignment between the proposal’s goals and the program priority areas (outlined above)

• Demonstration of equitable, bilateral research partnerships*

   

* See checklist for bilateral research partnerships (Figure 1) in this paper: Hodson DZ, Etoundi YM, Parikh S, Boum Y II (2023) Striving towards true equity in global health: A checklist for bilateral research partnerships. PLoS Glob Public Health 3(1):e0001418. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0001418

Key Dates:

• March 28, 2025:  Proposals due via online application  (11:59 PM Pacific).
• May 16, 2025:      Award letters are sent out.
• June 15, 2025:    Grants begin.  Awards will be for 18 months or less. All grantees are eligible for one no-cost extension if necessary.

Research Administration and Reporting Requirements:

• Once grants are awarded, the project team must submit a PDRF form via SeRA to set up their seed grant PTA.
• If research includes human subjects, projects will need to obtain IRB approval prior to incurring any costs related to the human subjects phase of research.
• All grantees must submit annual progress reports by December 1, and a final report 45 days after the work has been completed. 
• At the conclusion of their research, all seed grantees must also apply to present their funded research at the annual Stanford Global Health Research Convening, typically held every January.

Continue to Application (click link):  

         Call for Proposals: 2025 Stanford Global Health Seed Grants 

Questions?  Contact:  S. Jill Mueller:   sjillmueller@stanford.edu