Purpose
The VPDoR Grant Booster is managed by the Stanford Research Development Office and designed to facilitate the request for institutional support on qualifying projects. In combination with support from the PI’s home School, this initiative offers flexible funds to PIs who apply for and receive eligible extramural funding that advances collaborative, interdisciplinary research at Stanford. In addition, VPDoR can provide a letter of support to be included in the proposal submission to the external sponsor, if allowable and desired.
The Grant Booster aims to:
- Stimulate large-scale research collaborations across Stanford schools and disciplines.
- Supplement the award budget by covering some of the costs associated with conducting research.
- Increase proposal competitiveness through clear and compelling evidence of institutional support.
- Maximize the chance of project success.
- Streamline the process for faculty to request financial support from VPDoR for eligible projects.
VPDoR is offering this initiative as a three-year pilot. At the end of the pilot, VPDoR will evaluate the initiative’s impact, effectiveness, and budget sustainability.
Requirements
- Eligible recipients are Stanford faculty (i.e., members of the University's Academic Council) who serve as Principal Investigators on qualifying awards (see #2-5).
- Teams must consist of multi-investigator partnerships from two or more Stanford schools. Requests from interdisciplinary teams housed in different departments within the same school will also be considered and require additional approval to verify significant interdisciplinarity among team members.
- The total externally sponsored budget request must meet one of the thresholds detailed below in “Levels of support.”
- The funding opportunity must support activities classified as Sponsored Research. Exceptions may be made for sponsors that require a different designation for research projects (see FAQ).
- Grants need to receive full Facilities & Administrative (F&A) costs at the Federally negotiated rate to qualify. The Cost & Management Analysis Office maintains current rates.
- The proposal must be competitively reviewed by the external funder.
- Project teams must obtain comparable support from other programs or sources (e.g., participating schools or departments), as certified by the lead/contact PI’s home School.
- Requests should be submitted at least two (2) weeks before the sponsor’s deadline. Only requests submitted before submission to the sponsor will be considered.
Requests for VPDoR support that fall outside of the Grant Booster initiative can be submitted for consideration by VPDoR by selecting the “other support” button on the request form and providing the information requested.
Exceptions
When the PI is a faculty member from the School of Medicine, support requests will be considered by the School of Medicine Office of the Senior Associate Dean for Research instead. School of Medicine Faculty can contact the School of Medicine Office of the Senior Associate Dean for Research at sadrmedicine@stanford.edu.
When the PI is a SLAC Scientist, support requests will be considered by the Office of the Chief Research Officer. SLAC PIs may contact OCRO@slac.stanford.edu.