Sustainable Development & Global Competitiveness (SDGC) Seed Funding - Call for Proposals
The SDGC offers a Seed Grant to Stanford faculty, including members of the Academic Council, Medical Center Line faculty, and Active Emeriti, to support research that leverages advanced computational methods, artificial intelligence, and machine learning approaches to address sustainability-related challenges worldwide. The goal of this grant program is to inspire ambitious, high-impact ideas that, if realized, could offer scalable solutions to global sustainability issues.
The SDGC Seed Funding provides support for up to $75K for one year plus overhead/indirect costs.
Applications must be completed and submitted online. Applicants will receive a confirmation email once their application has been submitted, and award decisions will be communicated following the faculty advisory committee's review. Note that application materials will not be returned.
Applicants are required to identify both an administrative assistant and a finance manager within their department to facilitate the fund transfer, if awarded.
In addition to the application form, applicants are required to submit the following documents:
- One-page executive summary of the project.
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One-page PowerPoint slide illustrating the technology concept.
Proposal Review Process:
- The Request for Proposals (RFP) will be distributed and promoted across Stanford, with focused outreach to Principal Investigators in the School of Engineering, the Stanford-Doerr School of Sustainability, and the Graduate School of Business. Proposals from Principal Investigators in any Stanford school or unit are welcome.
- Applicants prepare and submit one-page executive summary of the project and one-page PowerPoint slide illustrating the technology concept.
- Proposals will be pre-reviewed by leadership at the Center for Sustainable Development & Global Competitiveness (SDGC) to ensure compliance with the RFP and alignment with the overall goals of the funding program. A committee of three faculty members will be convened to evaluate submissions and make recommendations to the SDGC Faculty Director for the final selection of awardees.
- We prioritize solutions that can be applied to address real-world problems rather than purely theoretical results.
All Stanford Academic Council members, Medical Center Line Faculty, and Active Emeriti are eligible to apply. While only the team’s Principal Investigator (PI) is required to have this status, all team members must be affiliated with Stanford. Collaborative applications with co-PIs are encouraged.
Projects must focus on technologies or approaches with the potential to address major sustainability-related challenges (see Table 1 below) through innovative, disruptive, and transformational research. This funding is specifically for projects that integrate advanced computational methods in new and inventive ways to deliver highly impactful and scalable solutions. Proposals that apply these methods to existing processes or technologies will not be considered for this RFP, as they do not align with the program's emphasis on novel approaches. Preference for proposal that includes a plan for invention disclosure to Office of Technology Licensing (OTL).
Table 1. Potential Sustainability Challenges
- Climate Change
- Freshwater Management
- Material Supply Chains
- Global Food Supply
- Planetary Health
- Renewable Energy
- Energy Efficiency
Reporting: Recipients must provide six months and 12 months reports on research results, usage of funds, and a list of publications, conference talks, and grant applications emerging from the research.
