The Stanford Social X-Change: Impact Lab Start-Up Funding
We are pleased to announce a call for proposals for Impact Lab Start-Up Funding as part of the pilot phase of the Social X-Change. These two-year, $500,000 investments ($250,000 per year) will be allocated on a competitive basis to new or existing teams/labs that:
- identify a well-defined social problem they wish to tackle;
- communicate a promising research design to advance solutions to the problem as well as advance scientific discovery;
- have a compelling theory of the relationship between scientific progress and impact on this problem;
- importantly, provide evidence of a strong partnership in place with institutions that have grounded knowledge of the social problem and are in a position to co-create implementation strategies, and facilitate the research and learning process;
- and demonstrate that they have a credible team in place to carry out the work.
Because the Social X-Change is in a pilot phase and we are not yet in a position to award term funding, we expect the start-up funding competition will appeal to a wide variety of teams/labs at different stages in their work:
- For more established teams/labs, we expect that applicants would demonstrate a promising new direction that they would not otherwise be in a position to pursue with existing funding/resources. This might involve a new aspect of the problem space in which they work, an opportunity with a new partner, or a strategy for scaling proven-interventions to new contexts (as long as there is a clear scientific component as well).
- For new teams/labs, the investment might provide the capital needed to build out a professional team to support an initial project or set of well-defined projects to launch an R&D cycle with an external partner.
We expect to make up to six investments in the first year, funding a combination of established and new teams/labs.
Please carefully review the call for proposals linked here and also attached below before submitting an application. For an application to be considered, the team *must* submit an LOI via email to lhazard@stanford.edu by October 18, 2019. Approved applicants will receive the URL for the application with an invitation to move forward.
PI-eligible Stanford faculty and researchers may apply. If appropriate, faculty may apply in teams where there is a clear commitment by all members to engage in the research and clarity about the skills/capabilities/contributions of each team member. Collaborators may reside at other universities.
Deliverables
Applications that are selected to receive start-up funds will meet with the Social X-Change team to map the anticipated metrics for the first year. Progress on these metrics will be used to evaluate eligibility to receive the other half of funding in the second year.
Reporting
Teams/labs that receive start-up funds will also be expected to share learnings and tools created during the first year to benefit the larger community of impact labs on campus. These include:
- a reflection exercise on quarterly learnings – both successes and failures
- the sharing of key 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, etc.
- attendance at twice a year convenings with other Social X-Change impact labs
- evidence of ongoing, substantive engagement with partner organizations
- participation in media opportunities and narrative building to promote social-problem-solving work at Stanford (featuring your impact lab’s work on our website, participating in a promotional video, presenting at major public events, etc.)
While the Social X-Change investments are flexible and largely unrestricted, applicants must submit a detailed budget and narrative explaining how the funds will be spent. The most compelling budgets will be those that invest resources in research and administrative support, partner needs, data collection or analysis, and uptake/implementation strategies, etc. Whilie course buyouts or summer salary for PIs may make sense in some contexts, the investment team views PI time as an in-kind contribution to the work of an impact lab.