Eligibility:
The primary applicant must be faculty or research staff (P&A) with their primary appointment at the University of Minnesota. Adjunct or affiliated faculty are not eligible for funding under this program.
Seed Funding Limits and Application Deadlines:
- Funding limit per application:
- Up to $10,000 per proposal.
- An additional $5,000 (for a total of up to $15,000) is available for applications involving outreach or engagement (e.g., organizing workshops, seminars, or conferences focused on exploring new areas and building new research collaborations)
- Up to $10,000 per proposal.
- Maximum proposal duration: 24 months
- Total Number of Awards: Varies, based on availability of funding.
- Application deadline: Quarterly.
- Q1: February 15. Award funding available beginning the following April 1.
- Q2: Early April. Award funding available beginning the following July 1.
- Q3: Early July. Award funding available beginning the following October 1.
- Q4: Early October. Award funding available beginning the following January 1.
Program Overview:
DSI Seed Grant funds are intended to promote, catalyze, accelerate, and advance UMN-based data science research so that UMN faculty and staff are well prepared to compete for longer-term external funding opportunities. Proposals from all disciplines and across all campuses, including interdisciplinary collaborations, intersecting with Data Science are encouraged to apply, with priority given to proposals that will enable or bridge applications to larger funding opportunities and/or create new cross-disciplinary or cross-system collaborations.
Priority will be given to proposals that align with at least one of the areas of the MnDRIVE initiative, and the current DSI focus areas:
Foundational Data Sciences: Topics that are foundational to data science applications including data-intensive and data-informed topics and applications along with methodological research in areas such as signal processing, data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence as well as topics in ethics and privacy. Fundamental methods dealing with data storage, archiving, sharing, acquisition, compression, or transmission are included. This includes, but is not limited to, disciplines that underlie data science such as statistics, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, and social and behavioral sciences.
Digital Health and Personalized Health Care Delivery: The broad scope of digital health includes disciplines such as mobile health (mHealth), public health, health information technology (HIT), wearable devices or tech, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized healthcare and medicine. It includes enhancements to patient and consumer health and healthcare delivery through capacity-building activities and continuous, personalized, predictive, participative, and preventive approaches.
Small seed grants are intended to cover immediate, short-term needs, so that UMN researchers may compete more effectively for longer term external funding. Proposals must include an explanation of what plans are being made by the investigator to sustain the support of the proposed research activities beyond the seed grant funding. It is highly recommended to include the names of specific funding opportunities the PI(s) plan to pursue to support the research beyond the seed funding. Some examples of how DSI Seed Grant funding may be used include:
- Production of preliminary results that will be used in a future grant submission
- Production and management of high value datasets used by the broader scholarly community (UMN or beyond)
- Travel to meetings or conferences where upcoming external funding opportunities will be discussed
- Convening UMN-based meetings to discuss or plan for external funding opportunity
- Bridge research efforts to the next funding opportunity
- Other efforts seeking to grow research related to MnDRIVE and data science
Equipment, non-PI salary, supplies, and services are all allowable expenses. For a seed grant to be successful, an investigator must justify how the expenses will help to advance their data science research and perhaps also align long term with the data science landscape at the University.
Required Application Materials:
- A proposal written in single-spaced, 11-point Calibri or Arial font, with one-inch margins (2-page max, excluding references).
- The proposal should include a summary of the support requested, including the specific scientific goals, and background relevant to the application. Explain how the proposal will align with one of the MnDRIVE areas and/or the DSI focus areas.
- A budget with a budget justification section outlining proposed expenses and a description of why they are needed to support the proposed activities. If the proposal duration is greater than 12 months, then a budget summary for each year of the proposal must be provided.
- An explanation of what plans are being made by the investigator to sustain the support of the proposed research activities beyond the seed grant funding.
- A document listing the PIs Current & Pending (C&P) support, if applicable.
For questions about this program, please email dsi-grants@umn.edu
DSI Small Seed Grant
Eligibility:
The primary applicant must be faculty or research staff (P&A) with their primary appointment at the University of Minnesota. Adjunct or affiliated faculty are not eligible for funding under this program.
Seed Funding Limits and Application Deadlines:
- Funding limit per application:
- Up to $10,000 per proposal.
- An additional $5,000 (for a total of up to $15,000) is available for applications involving outreach or engagement (e.g., organizing workshops, seminars, or conferences focused on exploring new areas and building new research collaborations)
- Up to $10,000 per proposal.
- Maximum proposal duration: 24 months
- Total Number of Awards: Varies, based on availability of funding.
- Application deadline: Quarterly.
- Q1: February 15. Award funding available beginning the following April 1.
- Q2: Early April. Award funding available beginning the following July 1.
- Q3: Early July. Award funding available beginning the following October 1.
- Q4: Early October. Award funding available beginning the following January 1.
Program Overview:
DSI Seed Grant funds are intended to promote, catalyze, accelerate, and advance UMN-based data science research so that UMN faculty and staff are well prepared to compete for longer-term external funding opportunities. Proposals from all disciplines and across all campuses, including interdisciplinary collaborations, intersecting with Data Science are encouraged to apply, with priority given to proposals that will enable or bridge applications to larger funding opportunities and/or create new cross-disciplinary or cross-system collaborations.
Priority will be given to proposals that align with at least one of the areas of the MnDRIVE initiative, and the current DSI focus areas:
Foundational Data Sciences: Topics that are foundational to data science applications including data-intensive and data-informed topics and applications along with methodological research in areas such as signal processing, data mining, machine learning, artificial intelligence as well as topics in ethics and privacy. Fundamental methods dealing with data storage, archiving, sharing, acquisition, compression, or transmission are included. This includes, but is not limited to, disciplines that underlie data science such as statistics, mathematics, computer science, philosophy, and social and behavioral sciences.
Digital Health and Personalized Health Care Delivery: The broad scope of digital health includes disciplines such as mobile health (mHealth), public health, health information technology (HIT), wearable devices or tech, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalized healthcare and medicine. It includes enhancements to patient and consumer health and healthcare delivery through capacity-building activities and continuous, personalized, predictive, participative, and preventive approaches.
Small seed grants are intended to cover immediate, short-term needs, so that UMN researchers may compete more effectively for longer term external funding. Proposals must include an explanation of what plans are being made by the investigator to sustain the support of the proposed research activities beyond the seed grant funding. It is highly recommended to include the names of specific funding opportunities the PI(s) plan to pursue to support the research beyond the seed funding. Some examples of how DSI Seed Grant funding may be used include:
- Production of preliminary results that will be used in a future grant submission
- Production and management of high value datasets used by the broader scholarly community (UMN or beyond)
- Travel to meetings or conferences where upcoming external funding opportunities will be discussed
- Convening UMN-based meetings to discuss or plan for external funding opportunity
- Bridge research efforts to the next funding opportunity
- Other efforts seeking to grow research related to MnDRIVE and data science
Equipment, non-PI salary, supplies, and services are all allowable expenses. For a seed grant to be successful, an investigator must justify how the expenses will help to advance their data science research and perhaps also align long term with the data science landscape at the University.
Required Application Materials:
- A proposal written in single-spaced, 11-point Calibri or Arial font, with one-inch margins (2-page max, excluding references).
- The proposal should include a summary of the support requested, including the specific scientific goals, and background relevant to the application. Explain how the proposal will align with one of the MnDRIVE areas and/or the DSI focus areas.
- A budget with a budget justification section outlining proposed expenses and a description of why they are needed to support the proposed activities. If the proposal duration is greater than 12 months, then a budget summary for each year of the proposal must be provided.
- An explanation of what plans are being made by the investigator to sustain the support of the proposed research activities beyond the seed grant funding.
- A document listing the PIs Current & Pending (C&P) support, if applicable.
For questions about this program, please email dsi-grants@umn.edu