School Seed Fund

The School of Technology Seed Fund aims to further the School’s priorities of increasing research income and/or cross-department collaborative activity, by funding activities that will lead to substantial further research income, or to an equivalent substantial impact. An award could fund postdoctoral researcher time, support a workshop, or support development of a major collaborative proposal.

• Maximum award: £15,000 
• Applicants: PIs in the School of Technology
• Costs: Direct Costs only

Completed projects: what we have funded so far

Take a look at completed seed funded projects by Department:

• Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology
• Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
• Department of Computer Science and Technology
• Department of Engineering
• Judge Business School: our first project from JBS is underway! Report to follow.

How to apply

Download application form

Email applications to researchstrat@tech.cam.ac.uk. Applications can be submitted at any time; dates for the year are given below. Applications will be assessed by members of the School Research Committee.

Seed fund purpose and aims

All projects should provide a basis for something substantial beyond themselves. This is likely to be one or more of the following:

1. Further substantial research income to SoT. For an experienced PI this would be a high-value and/or multi-partner grant. For an early-career PI, it would be an ambitious goal appropriate to the PI’s career stage.
2. A major research initiative
3. Significant new or emerging cross-School and cross-Dept collaborative activity
4. Significant new activity in one/more of the SoT research themes: (i) Sustainable future, (ii) Health and wellbeing, (iii) Security and resilience, (iv) Increased competitiveness.

Eligibility criteria

1. The lead academic must:
   
   1. Be based in one of the Departments of the School of Technology
   2. Be a PI who is eligible to hold their own grants within their Department
   3. Have a contract running beyond the proposed end date of the funding
2. Eligible costs:
   
   1. Direct costs only, max. £15,000
3. The following are not supported by the seed fund:
   
   1. Buy-out of academic investigator time
   2. Stand-alone research
   3. Non-research activities (e.g. teaching, outreach, commercialisation)
   4. Proposals for the sole purpose of bridging a postdoc
   5. Proposals whose primary purpose is administrative support for bid preparation. (Apply instead to the RSO Bid Preparation Fund: rolling deadline; a response is normally given within 2 weeks of submission)

Application conditions

• Applicants must commit to submitting a substantial funding application (or equivalent follow-on appropriate to the end goal) enabled by the seed fund, within a year of the award end date.
• Fellowship applications are not excluded as a legitimate follow-on goal of a seed fund project, but the application must demonstrate clearly (i) how the application’s goal aligns with the School’s aims and fund purpose above, (ii) that the Fellowship would be held in Cambridge.
• Projects typically begin immediately and take 3-4 months. Where a delayed start or longer duration is requested, the application should indicate why this is needed.
• To avoid unnecessary precarity for researchers, funding should typically be requested for 100% of a researcher’s time. Where funding is requested for <100% of a researcher’s time, the application should indicate the scientific need for the work to be carried out part time over a longer period, and the source of funding for the remainder of the researcher’s time during this period.

Award conditions

• Funds must be spent within 12 months
• Recipients must arrange a call with the Joint Schools’ Research Relations Team to discuss progress and follow-on funding applications, midway through the project
• A final 1000-word report of activities and outcomes, plus a 200-word summary suitable for publication on the School website, must be submitted within 14 months of the award date.
• Unspent funds will be returned to the School and put towards future projects.

Further support for large grants

The Research Strategy Office offer two types of support for applications:

• Large Grant Contributions Fund: institutional financial contributions to large collaborative grant proposals
• Bid Preparation Fund: small grants to enable preparation of large collaborative bids