Impact Lab Start-Up Funding
These two-year, $250,000 per year, investments will be allocated on a competitive basis to new or existing teams/labs that identify a well-defined social problem they wish to tackle, provide evidence of a strong partnership in place to facilitate the research and development process, communicate a promising research design, demonstrate that they have a credible team in place to carry out the work, and have a compelling theory of the relationship between scientific progress and impact on this problem. Moving forward, SIL will announce Start-Up Funding competitions every spring, with funds to be awarded fall quarter.
Please see the full RFP here.
PI-eligible Stanford faculty and researchers are eligible to apply. If appropriate, faculty are encouraged to apply in teams when there is a clear commitment of multiple faculty to engage in the research and clarity about the skills/capabilities/contributions of each team member. However, PIs can also apply as individuals or with collaborators at other universities. In addition, each PI can only submit one proposal per funding round. Faculty can serve as co-investigators on multiple projects.
Deliverables
Applications that are selected to receive start-up funds will meet with the SIL team to create a delivery plan, identify lab and partner roles and responsibilities, and map anticipated metrics for the first year. Progress on the plan and/or metrics will be used to evaluate eligibility to receive the second tranche of funding in the second year.
Reporting
Teams/labs that receive start-up funds will also be expected to share key learnings, tools, and practices in order to benefit the larger community of Impact Labs on campus. These include:
- monthly touchpoints with SIL staff on delivery plan
- a quarterly reflection exercise on key learnings – both successes and failures
- the sharing of tools that you develop in the course of your research and partnership work including training MoUs, data use agreements, job descriptions, training materials for partners, tracking and reporting mechanisms, etc.
- attendance at convenings with other SIL Impact Labs
- participation in media opportunities and narrative building to promote social problem-solving work at Stanford (ex: featuring your Impact Lab’s work on our website, participating in a promotional video, presenting at major public events, etc.)
Research Compliance Questionnaire
