2023 ORIEI Seed Funding Opportunities

The 2023 ORIEI Seed Funding is now CLOSED. Check back in the Spring for the 2024 Opportunity. 

The 2023 Awardee List can be found here

The Office of Research Innovation and Economic Impact (ORIEI) is excited to announce the 2023 ORIEI Seed Funding opportunities. The highlights are below with links to the full Requests for Proposals.

PLEASE NOTE: An Informational Q&A was held on March 8, 2023 2:00-3:00 pm.  The recording of the Zoom meeting can be found here.

We will be continually updating an FAQ for ORIEI Seed Funding. That regularly updated document can be found here: ORIEI SEED FUNDING FAQ. Last Updated 3/16/2023

If you have any questions, please feel free to send them to resdev@gmu.edu and we will try to address the questions as we update our FAQ document.

Seed Funding Opportunity Highlights:

1. Building the FoundationEarly Stage Research Seed Funding

The full Request for Proposals can be found here: 2023 ORIEI Building the Foundation Early Stage Funding Grants – Requests for Proposal

The goal of the ORIEI Building the Foundation – Early Stage Research Seed Funding is to stimulate the development of new research and scholarship initiatives through the support of projects that have a high probability of attracting new external support for sustained scholarly contributions and impact.

Proposal Due Date: March 31, 2023
Funding Decisions: On or about June 15, 2023
Funding Limit: $50,000
Duration: 12-18 Months (proposals for external funding expected in 18 months)

Eligibility:

  • All faculty currently allowed to submit proposals under Mason’s Principal Investigators Policy 4012.
  • PLEASE NOTE: This funding is for early stage researchers. Priority will be given to early career faculty, restart career faculty and those who have not yet received external funding.
  • A faculty member may only participate as a member of the proposing team on one (1) proposal in this competition.
  • Faculty may NOT submit a proposal for BOTH the Building the Foundation – Early Stage Research Seed Funding and the larger Take It to the Next Level – Multidisciplinary Research Seed Funding opportunity (see below)

2. Take It to the Next LevelMultidisciplinary Research Seed Funding

The full Request for Proposals can be found here: 2023 ORIEI Take It to the Next Level – Request for Proposals

The goal of this funding is to advance scalable multidisciplinary projects for research and scholarship in Sustainability, Biohealth or Digital Innovation.  This seed funding opportunity will drive stakeholder engagement and support planning activities to secure transdisciplinary basic and translational research and scholarship organized around topics that align with one or more of Mason’s university-level research institutes; Institute for Biohealth Innovation, Institute for a Sustainable Earth, and Institute for Digital InnovAtion.

Proposal Due Date: April 7, 2023
Funding Decisions: On or about June 15, 2023
Funding Limit: $100,000, PLUS tuition and health insurance for one full-time doctoral student GRA (stipend for GRA must be included in proposed budget)
Duration:  12-18 Months

Eligibility:

  • All faculty currently allowed to submit proposals under Mason’s Principal Investigators Policy 4012.
  • Priority will be given to applications that build on PIs’ existing research, scholarship, and creative activity portfolio.
  • Partnership with an outside collaborator is REQUIRED. This can be an Industry, Community, Government, Academic Institution, or other external collaborator(s) as appropriate.
  • A faculty member may only participate as a member of the proposing team on no more than two (2) proposalin this competition.
  • Faculty may NOT submit a proposal for BOTH the Take It to the Next LevelMultidisciplinary Research Seed Funding and the smaller Building the Foundation – Early Stage Research Seed Funding (noted above)

For those interested in the results of the 2022 Seed Funding, you can find the full funding award announcement here