Seed Grant Program
Next deadline: October 15, 2025, 11:59 pm
IPR offers seed grants to nurture and promote population research, with a focus on research that will eventually result in external funding. Seed grants can be used to collect or acquire data, conduct preliminary analyses, develop new collaborations, or other activities that help strengthen research proposals. Priority is given to research that falls within one or more of IPR's four thematic areas: (i) Family Demography; (ii) Sexual and Reproductive Health; (iii) Health and Mortality; and (iv) Adolescent to Young Adult Development. We especially value research that fits within the scientific mission of the NICHD Population Dynamics Branch.
Interested applicants are strongly recommended to contact IPR Director Sarah Hayford before submission to ensure that their topic fits with this mission.
Applicants must be OSU faculty or have PI status at OSU. Unfortunately, we are unable to fund research activities that take place outside the United States. (Research using data collected internationally is eligible as long as all funds are spent in the U.S.)
We prioritize applications from junior faculty, from faculty new to population and health research, and from multidisciplinary groups. Applications from junior faculty should identify a faculty mentor at OSU; applicants who do not have an existing relationship may ask IPR leadership for help in identifying an appropriate mentor.
Funded projects will have a twelve-month timeline (with option for no-cost extension) and a budget up to $40,000. R01, R21, R03, and K applications to NICHD are common outcomes. Proposals with larger budgets may be considered with prior approval from the IPR director.
The goal of this program is to seed projects that will eventually lead to successful proposals for external funding. The structure of seed grant projects and the activities they fund can take many forms; in particular, seed grants need not immediately result in published research products. However, all seed grant proposals should clearly describe how the activities supported by the seed grant will contribute to the development of the external proposal (for example, by providing preliminary data; by demonstrating feasibility of an approach; by furthering knowledge of a research field; etc.).
Seed grant recipients are required to acknowledge IPR in any presentations or publications resulting from the seeded project. IPR should be included as a recipient of indirect costs on any application for external funding submitted based on the seeded project.
Application Format, Templates and Deadlines
Allowable expenses under IPR seed grants include: limited investigator salary (academic year or summer); GRA stipend and tuition; salary for other research staff (research scientist, post-doctoral fellow); research materials, data acquisition; preliminary analysis (including software development); pilot fieldwork and instrument development; meetings with visitors and shared support for multidisciplinary teams of researchers (including travel expenses); consultation with collaborators and experts outside OSU.
The grant application includes a 6-page (maximum) description of the project, following the instructions linked below; a cover page; a budget and budget justification; and an NIH-format biosketch for each investigator.
Seed Grant Application Instructions and Review Criteria
Seed Grant Rules and PI Responsibilities
Combine all application materials (except budget) into a single pdf and submit proposals via this submission form.
Contact Carol Bitzinger with any questions about application materials, budgets, or other aspects of the application process.
Pending available funding, IPR conducts two grant calls each year with deadlines the third Wednesday in October and the first Wednesday in March. Start dates are approximately January 1 (for October submissions) or June 1 (for March submissions).
NICHD Population Dynamics Branch (PDB) scientific mission:
PDB supports research in demography, reproductive health, and population health:
- In demography, the Branch supports research on the scientific study of human populations, including fertility, mortality and morbidity, migration, population distribution, nuptiality, family demography, population growth and decline, and the causes and consequences of demographic change.
- In reproductive health, the Branch supports behavioral and social science research on sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/AIDS, family planning, and infertility.
- In population health, the Branch supports data collection and research on human health, productivity, behavior, and development at the population level, using such methods as inferential statistics, natural experiments, policy experiments, statistical modeling, and gene/environment interaction studies.