VPDoR $50,000 Propel Grant - 2025 Spring Cycle

The Stanford Research Development Office (RDO), a unit within VPDoR, supports Principal Investigators (PIs) throughout the proposal development process. To improve the competitiveness of large and complex external funding proposals, RDO invites applications for Propel Grants, which fund the final stages of proposal preparation.

Purpose and Scale

Propel Grants are designed to help teams take their projects to the next level by providing strategic support for large-scale, complex proposals. These grants fund additional activities in the final stages of proposal development, enhancing strategic positioning, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, and addressing key gaps to strengthen the proposal’s competitiveness. Rather than covering baseline preparation, Propel Grants support the extra steps—such as strategic planning, advanced preparation, and targeted refinements—that position teams to succeed in securing external funding.

These grants are intended for projects that exceed typical expectations in scope, budget, or team size, often involving interdisciplinary partnerships to tackle major societal or research challenges. Propel Grants are aimed at large-scale projects in both STEM and the arts, humanities, and social sciences. In STEM, suitable opportunities may include center-type grants such as NSF Science and Technology Centers, DOE Energy Frontier Research Centers, and NIH P50 or U54 awards. In the arts, humanities, and social sciences, projects may target NEH Collaborative Research Grants, NEA Grants for Arts Projects, and select Mellon grants. This list is not exhaustive but illustrates the kinds of complex funding opportunities the Propel Grants aim to support.

Eligibility

• Open to Stanford faculty with PI status (Academic Council members or UML faculty).
• School of Medicine applicants must include co-PIs from other Stanford schools.
• Teams must have already conducted preliminary work and be prepared to submit an external funding proposal in 12 months or less.
• Projects must target funding opportunities that are “beyond the usual” in scale for their disciplines in terms of research scope, award budget, or team size.

Priorities

Priority is given to Stanford-led teams and for projects that:

• Involve faculty partnerships across two or more Stanford schools.
• Engage disciplines with limited internal grant support.
• Strengthen collaboration between Stanford and SLAC.

RDO will award a portfolio of Propel Grants representing Stanford's breadth of scholarly areas.

Grant Supported Activities

Propel Grants fund activities that go beyond routine proposal preparation and directly enhance the proposal’s competitiveness. Examples include:

• Strategic collaborations – Stakeholder engagement, expert consultations, cross-disciplinary team coordination.
• Enhanced feasibility demonstrations – Supplementary experiments, pilot studies, access to specialized archives or datasets.
• Proposal competitiveness enhancements – Proposal review workshops, mock review panels, expert-driven refinements.
• Advanced methodologies – Computational modeling, high-level data analysis, visualization tools.

Please see the Propel Grant FAQs for more information.

Timeline

Large Propel Grants Spring Cycle

• April 2, 2025 – Application deadline
• May 19, 2025 – Award start date
• June 17, 2026 – End-of-grant report due

Large Propel Grants are announced twice a year, with the autumn cycle typically announced in September. Exceptions to the deadlines may be requested under certain circumstances.

Please see the Propel Grant FAQs for more information.

Small Propel Grants

• Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis.
• Funding decisions are announced within three weeks of submission.

Award

Large Propel Grant applicants may request a University Research Award of up to $50,000 in direct costs for up to 12 months.

The external funding request must be substantially higher than the requested Propel Grant amount. A good guide would be 20x; for example, to request a $50,000 Propel Grant, the external proposal budget should be at least $1,000,000.

All applications will be assessed for the reasonableness and necessity of the requested funds to achieve the proposed activities. Awards may not cover the full requested amount if activities are misaligned with the program's purpose. Smaller budget requests are welcome and appreciated. In exceptional cases, larger requests may be considered if a compelling and well-documented need is demonstrated.

Review Process and Criteria   

Reviewers will evaluate whether the proposed activities will advance an already promising project, contributing to its readiness and increasing its chances of success in securing large, complex external funding. The proposal should outline how the requested funds will directly contribute to activities that extend beyond what has already been done, enhancing the overall quality and competitiveness of the project.

All applications receive a programmatic review by RDO staff for compliance and programmatic fit.

In addition, Large Propel Grant applications may undergo peer review to assess the application, focusing on the significance, feasibility, and overall potential for funding success of the proposed research.

All applications will be screened based on the following criteria:

• Significance: Does the project go beyond standard disciplinary expectations in scope, budget, or team size?
• Readiness: Has the team demonstrated sufficient groundwork?
• Proposed Activities: Will the Propel Grant directly enhance competitiveness for external funding?
• Budget Justification: Is the request proportional to the project’s needs and external funding scale?
• Feasibility: Can the proposed activities be completed within the timeline and budget?
• Funding Potential: Will the team be ready to submit a competitive external proposal by the end of the grant period?

Application Format

Each application should be uploaded as a single PDF via the VPDoR Internal Awards Portal.

Propel Grant reviewers will be from different academic fields or subfields than your own. It is highly recommended that you write your application so a wide academic audience can easily understand it and provide sufficient detail to demonstrate feasibility. 

Font size must be 11 pt or larger with 1-inch margins on all sides. Large Propel Grant applications are limited to 7 pages (including any figures and excluding references).

Please include the following sections:

1. Research idea for the external proposal
   1. Describe the problem or need your research aims to address and how it proposes to do so. This idea should form the basis of your proposal for external funding.
   2. Clarify the current stage of the research project or any preparations made.
   3. Explain how the project goes beyond standard disciplinary expectations in scope, scale, or team structure, and explain why the targeted external grant award amount warrants the Propel Grant.
2. Propel Grant activities
   1. Describe the activities the Propel Grant funds will support and the intended outcomes.
   2. Include a clear timeline from now until the external funding agency’s deadline, milestones, and intended outcomes
   3. Explain how the proposed activities will enhance the competitiveness of the proposal to an external funding agency.
3. Team composition
   1. List members, roles, and departments, noting confirmed vs. proposed collaborators.
   2. Describe prior collaboration, interdisciplinary strengths, and team readiness.
4. External funding plan
   1. Identify at least one potential external grant. Proposing an alternative funding opportunity or backup plan is encouraged.
   2. Include the following details on the targeted external grant(s).
      1. External sponsor name.
      2. Program name or identifier.
      3. External sponsor deadline.
      4. The expected budget request for the targeted external opportunity.
      5. URL to the funding solicitation if available.
5. Budget* and justification
   1. Provide a detailed breakdown of requested funds.
   2. Provide a rationale for the requested funds
   3. Indicate any existing support and address potential overlaps.
   4. If requesting over $50,000, justify why the project’s scope and complexity warrant additional resources.
6. Appendices (optional and do not count towards any page limits)
   1. References or works cited
   2. PDF of the targeted external funding opportunity solicitation(s)

*Proposed budgets do not need institutional representative review for this internally funded program; however, we highly encourage applicants to work with their department administrator/financial analyst on budget development.

Award Reporting Requirements

1. Report: Large Propel Grant recipients will be expected to (a) submit an initial report at the end of the grant period describing what was accomplished or lessons learned and (b) complete a survey one year after the award period describing the impact and outcomes of the Propel Grant activities.
2. Notification: Teams should notify RDO if the Propel Grants contributed to a noteworthy outcome, or if any external funds were received, for up to two years after receiving the award.