Program for Disease Ecology Health and the Environment Working Groups

WHAT IS A FACULTY WORKING GROUP?:

A Faculty Working Group is composed of about 10 or so experts, selected from a range of disciplines, geographic regions, and/or sectors, who come together to focus and collaborate intensively for about a week at a time, usually for several times a year. Each participant brings his/her data, methods, and experiences for analysis.  The goal of a working group is to synthesize existing data or create new knowledge and catalyze innovative solutions.  

Faculty are welcome to include graduate or professional students and/or post-docs in their working groups as additional members, as funding permits. Note that any students/post-docs who are formally included in Faculty Working Groups should be afforded equal access to meetings, networking events, and opportunities to contribute to outputs as are faculty members.

Note: The intent of this funding call is to primarily support working group meetings, networking, and outputs.  Where appropriate, travel of one or more of the working group members to field sites for preliminary data collection is allowable but should be kept at a minimum.  Use of existing data and/or data collected with support from other university resources should be brought by members to the working groups for analysis and summary.

PROGRAM GUIDELINES:

The Program for Disease Ecology, Health, and the Environment seeks projects that:

• Are high-risk, transformative projects that have the potential to produce “win-win” solutions to major health and environmental challenges,
• Address core values and standards of excellence of Stanford University and the Program for Disease Ecology, Health and the Environment, including: solutions-oriented, sustainable, creative projects that foster dialogue, deep engagement, accessibility, and education/student-involvement,
• Include emphasis in both human health and environmental science, by including work in focal areas of Stanford Woods and/or CIGH such as: ecosystem services and conservation, infectious disease, epidemiology, public/global health, oceans/freshwater, climate, food security, and/or sustainable development.
• Represent one or more of the above program priorities.
• Have the potential for sustainable uptake by communities or obtaining future support.

SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS & REVIEW PROCESS:

Review Process:

• Submissions are due by email to Cheryl Butner cbutner@stanford.edu by Feb 5, 2018, midnight PST. Applications will be reviewed by the selection committee. Awards will be announced in March with earliest start dates in July 2018.

• If you have any questions about your project or idea, or would like additional information, please contact Cheryl Butner cbutner@stanford.edu, Susanne Sokolow ssokolow@stanford.edu, or Giulio DeLeo deleo@stanford.edu. If you have technical questions or issues in submitting your application, please contact Cheryl Butner.

Application Instructions:

Proposals should address all 5 parts, outlined below.  All proposals (Parts 1-4) are limited to 3 pages, single spaced, 12 point font, with 1” margins.  Budget, budget justification, and references are not included in the length limit.

Please be sure to include the following specific sections in your proposal:

• Part 1 – Project Description: The proposal should describe in clear terms the Problem to be addressed, an Approach that is novel, and a clear and compelling statement of how working groups will help develop a Solution. Please describe your research in the larger framework of a major health and environmental challenge.
• Part 2 – Products of the working group: Please describe the products you expect to generate through the proposed project, which would be likely to lead to new knowledge, future expansion and uptake of the idea, or actionable solutions, e.g., prototypes and innovations, papers, and/or larger grants that will leverage this seed funding. Please also describe any anticipated engagement of external stakeholders and partners before, during and/or after your project that may inform the research and facilitate the transmission of your research discoveries into action.  External stakeholders and partners may be decision makers or managers related to the motivating environmental or health issues and/or your approach. They may be existing companies, venture capital interests, or even Stanford’s Office of Technology and Licensing that you engage to explore potential IP and commercial possibilities. They may be relevant NGOs, community groups or other organizations with capacity to adopt or implement your findings at scale.
• Part 3 – Sustainability Strategy: Recognizing that research does not always lead to a solution over the span of a single project, briefly articulate a vision for how you believe this project will ultimately lead to lasting impacts, including sustained stakeholder uptake, and/or outside funding and how your research agenda may evolve with outside funding to further contribute to the scaling up of “win-win” health and environmental solutions. We encourage projects at all stages from exploratory projects through scaled-up solutions; all proposals, regardless of stage, must include a sustainability strategy, which is a vision of how the project will eventually lead to sustainable solutions.  Please list specific potential partners, stakeholders, and/or sources of funding which you believe progress under this grant will enable you to be competitive in pursuing.
• Part 4 – Working Group Interdisciplinary Team: Describe the composition of your working group, explaining how the PIs and team members are from important representative disciplines; the contributions of each; and how the group will work in an integrated fashion.  Keep in mind a goal of gender and cultural diversity as well as expertise among the group.  Each PI (Lead and Co-) must be a member of the Stanford Academic Council, Medical Center Line. Other members of working groups may be experts from within or outside Stanford University.  Please verify that both PI and co-PI are PI eligible.  Lead PIs will serve as the primary contact. Provide the following information for each team member: Name, Title, University and Departmental Affiliation, E-mail, Area(s) of Expertise, Link(s) to Online Bio/Webpage if available. 
• Part 5 – Budget and Budget Justification.  Budget may be requested for non-salary categories including but not limited to: travel, facilities, supplies (<$5000), IT support, outreach, publications, and networking.  Salary support is not permitted.  

Rules to write by:

• Be concise and compelling.
• Assume that reviewers have little or no familiarity with your topic. Avoid jargon and explain your ideas in language accessible to a diverse audience.
• Please be sure to address all five parts fully. Only grant proposals that include all five parts will be considered for review.
• Keep the scope of project focused and the scale appropriate to the level of funding.

Budget & Justification Guide

Important points to keep in mind when preparing your proposal and budget:

• This is a university research program. DEHE research grants do not incur indirect charges (IDC) or infrastructure charges (ISC). ISC is charged to the Program for Disease Ecology Health and the Environment at the time of funding,
• Salary support is not permitted,
• Include all budget numbers in US dollars rounding up to the nearest whole dollar values. 
• Include the following sections (as applicable) in the budget and justification: Travel, Professional services, Materials and supplies, Publication fees/costs, Other
• Include a Budget Justification for each budget line item