Overview and Purpose
The purpose of this mini seed funding is to enable pilot research that will lead to submissions to externally funded research programs in the broad area of “human machine partnership.” We seek to identify and support interdisciplinary teams planning to pursue novel convergent research. The seed grant can support new or existing teams to perform activities, such as faculty effort, preliminary research, team building, and project scoping, that are necessary to enable the submission of a competitive larger proposal in the future. Funded projects should lead directly to an external proposal submission as a next step.
Investigator Specification
Proposals should come from teams of at least two investigators from at least two different departments or disciplines. CAHMP Affiliate members must collaborate with a Core member to submit an application. In addition to listing the investigators, proposals should identify additional faculty members, disciplines, or external partners, if applicable, that the team will engage during the seed grant period.
Activities Eligible for Support
The mini seed grants aim to support a range of planning activities intended to foster a convergent research team that can effectively integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives, explore the research theme in depth, build collaborations with relevant stakeholders, and hone specification of research gaps, questions, and hypotheses. Activities within scope include, but are not limited to, workshops, stakeholder meetings, literature reviews, data collection, preliminary experiments, prototypes, and pilots. In all cases, the proposed activities should be designed as a step along the path to a future external grant.
Budget Guidelines
Teams should propose a budget commensurate with the scope of their proposed activities and their intended next steps. The maximum allowable budget for a proposal is $20,000. The total requested amount, as well as the individual line items, should be clearly justified in the budget section of the proposal.
Eligible budget categories include faculty time (summer salary and/or AY course buyout), student assistantships and/or wages, travel (for team building), equipment, materials & supplies, and participant support costs. There is no need to budget indirect costs.
Funds will be transferred to the PI’s home department. Unspent funds must be transferred back to CAHMP within 45 days of the project’s end date. Project periods should end before June 30, 2024.
Proposal Content
Proposals should be no more than three (3) single-spaced pages (please use the template provided attached), using Times New Roman 12-point font. Proposals should address the following topics:
- Definition of the research theme/area and motivation for its importance
- History and current status of the research theme (literature/conceptual review)
- Vision for development of the research theme
- Qualifications of the interdisciplinary team
- Specific external grant objective and target source
- Timeline (projects should not extend past June 30, 2024.)
- Budget and budget justification
Review Criteria
- Strength and potential of the interdisciplinary team
- Importance and potential of the research theme
- Opportunity for the team to create a distinct and compelling research niche
- Clarity and feasibility of the plan to achieve external funding
- Overall potential return on investment
- Relevance of the theme to the vision and interests of CAHMP and Mason
Submission Process
Email a PDF copy of your submission to Peng Warweg at pwarweg@gmu.edu by 5:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 31, 2023.
Proposals will be reviewed, and funding decisions will be made by the CAHMP leadership team and external advisors by no later than June 30, 2023 (earlier if possible).