Grant Booster

Purpose

The Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Research (VPDoR) is committed to supporting Stanford faculty in pursuing large, collaborative, externally sponsored research grants. Increasingly, the cost of conducting such research exceeds what sponsors provide. The Grant Booster aims to help bridge that gap by:

• Mitigating unmet project costs
• Encouraging the pursuit of complex, interdisciplinary projects
• Strengthening proposals through demonstrated institutional support

The Stanford Research Development Office manages the Grant Booster and facilitates requests for VPDoR support on qualifying proposals. In combination with funding from the PI’s School or Department, the initiative provides flexible, unrestricted funds to grant awardees. If allowable and desired, VPDoR can also provide a letter of institutional support for inclusion in the external proposal.

VPDoR launched this initiative in FY 2023 as a three-year pilot and will evaluate its effectiveness, impact, and sustainability at the end of the pilot period (FY2026).

Program Goals

• Stimulate large-scale, collaborative research across Stanford schools and disciplines, or within schools when appropriate to the opportunity.
• Supplement externally sponsored award budgets by covering costs associated with conducting research.
• Increase proposal competitiveness by demonstrating institutional support.
• Maximize the potential for successful project execution.
• Streamline the process for faculty to request financial support from VPDoR.

To qualify for Grant Booster support, the following criteria must be met:

1. Eligible Applicants*: Stanford faculty who meet the university's Principal Investigator (PI) eligibility requirements (i.e., members of the Academic Council and the University Medical Line (UML) faculty).
2. Team Composition: Teams must include multiple investigators from at least two or more Stanford schools. Under certain circumstances, teams within one school will also be considered if they demonstrate significant scale and complexity (see FAQs).
3. Minimum Budget Threshold: The Stanford budget request must meet the levels listed in the “Levels of Support” section.
4. Project Type: The opportunity must support activities classified as Sponsored Research. Limited exceptions may be considered (see FAQ).
5. F&A Requirements: The project must receive full Facilities & Administrative (F&A) costs at Stanford’s federally negotiated rate. (Current rates are maintained by the Cost & Management Analysis Office.)
6. Competitive Review: The proposal must be competitively reviewed by the external sponsor.
7. Comparable Department/School Commitments: PIs must secure a comparable commitment from their home school or department. This is an internal match to ensure institutional co-investment in the project.
8. Submission Timing: The support request must be submitted at least two weeks before the sponsor’s deadline and prior to proposal submission.

For projects that do not qualify under Grant Booster, applicants may submit a request for VPDoR consideration using the “Other Support” option on the request form.

*Exceptions

School of Medicine PIs: 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.

SLAC Scientists: Support requests will be considered by the Office of the Chief Research Officer. SLAC PIs may contact OCRO@slac.stanford.edu. 

All Disciplines

Eligible projects receive unrestricted, flexible cash support from VPDoR based on the total budget requested from the sponsor (inclusive of direct and indirect costs for the full project duration).

VPDoR reserves the right to adjust the amount based on the final award.

If Stanford is not the lead institution, only the Stanford subaward budget is considered.

Humanities, Arts, and Interpretive Social Sciences

Recognizing the different funding norms in these disciplines, lower thresholds apply for projects employing humanistic or interpretive methods.

Learn More

Allowable Uses of Funding

VPDoR funding may be used flexibly to support project success, including but not limited to:

• Personnel or staff effort to support project coordination
• Convening collaborators or advisory boards
• Equipment maintenance or service contracts
• Supplies or reagents
• Data security or computing support

Funds are intentionally flexible to support the project’s success. PIs may use them at their discretion, with the requirement that all expenditures follow Stanford Purchasing Policies.

Cost Sharing Policy

PIs and administrators are responsible for reviewing sponsor guidelines on cost sharing—including whether it is required, optional, or prohibited—and for ensuring that any VPDoR support is represented appropriately in the external proposal in compliance with those sponsor requirements.

Options include:

• Unquantified institutional support (recommended when allowable)
• Quantified required cost share (if mandated by the sponsor)
• Quantified voluntary cost share (generally discouraged)

Refer to RPH 15.3: Cost Sharing Policy for compliance requirements.

Clarifications

• Teams must be prepared to submit the full proposal to the sponsor within 60 days of submitting the request to VPDoR.
• Late requests (i.e., submitted too close to the ORS/RMG or sponsor deadline) are not guaranteed review.
• Requests submitted after submission to the sponsor will not be considered.
• HAISS projects may qualify with lower budget thresholds due to differences in scale and cost structure.
• Funding is contingent upon school/department contributions and will only be released after award notification.
• The PI is responsible for identifying and documenting matching contributions, cash or in-kind, for certification by their school.

Application and Approval Process

1. PI discusses the proposal and matching commitments with the department chair and/or dean.
2. PI completes the VPDoR Institutional Support Request Form before proposal submission. The form collects:
   1. Project team composition
   2. Sponsor and funding opportunity information
   3. Proposal and budget details
   4. Contact information
   5. School/department support (if available)
3. VPDoR reviews for compliance with program goals and eligibility criteria.
4. VPDoR issues a decision:
   1. Conditional approval
   2. Decline, with explanation
   3. Request for revisions
5. If allowable, VPDoR endorses an institutional support letter for submission with the proposal. The PI is expected to draft the support letter, which VPDoR will review, revise if needed, and sign.
6. After the external sponsor issues an award, the PI submits:
   1. The corresponding award agreement from the external sponsor, and
   2. Confirmation of comparable school/department commitments.
7. VPDoR verifies eligibility and transfers funds to the PI's PTA.

For questions or additional information, please contact the Stanford Research Development Office at stanford_rdo@stanford.edu.

Download a pdf of the guidelines  Download a PDF of the Institutional Support Thought Starter

Grant Booster Supporting Documents Form

Submit a Request

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions

Must the project team consist of all Stanford faculty?

Research teams can include external collaborators, but must meet the requirement of multiple Stanford PIs from two or more schools at Stanford.

Requests from teams in different departments within the same school will also be considered; however, the team must demonstrate significant interdisciplinarity between departments.

When will VPDoR consider applications from teams based in a single Stanford school?

While the Grant Booster prioritizes cross-school collaboration, VPDoR recognizes there are cases where a team based in one school may still meet the program’s goals. Single-school teams may be eligible if either of the following applies:

• The funding opportunity is discipline-specific, with eligibility limited to a particular academic field or school (e.g., NSF Physics Frontiers Centers or Engineering Research Centers). The proposed project must still involve multiple investigators and demonstrate the scale and complexity expected of the program.
• The team demonstrates significant interdisciplinarity across academic fields within the school, such as collaboration across departments or distinct disciplines. In these cases, teams must clearly explain how the proposed work integrates different scholarly perspectives in a way that is understandable to a general academic audience.
  • Example: Collaborations that bridge substantially different fields, such as an investigator from the Physics Department working with an investigator from the Department of Biology, would meet this criterion.

Can Stanford participate as a subawardee on the proposal and still qualify?

Projects with Stanford listed as the lead applicant or as a substantially funded subawardee are both suitable, as long as the proposal budget to Stanford meets the budget threshold. (i.e., total budget request if Stanford is lead, or Stanford subaward budget request if Stanford is not lead).

What qualifies as "comparable support" from the school or department?

Matching contributions may include cash or the fair market value of non-cash contributions, such as equipment, use of core facilities, materials, supplies, services, or other in-kind support.

The amount should demonstrate meaningful institutional commitment and align with the scale of the request to VPDoR.

All commitments must be confirmed in writing by the school’s dean’s office or designated approver.

What types of projects are appropriate?

Grant Booster aims to support qualifying research projects and expects the pool to include large-scale, center-grant type funding opportunities from federal agencies, such as NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers, NSF Science and Technology Centers, DOE Energy Frontier Research Centers, DoD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, and NEH Collaborative Research and Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence. This list is not exhaustive.

What projects qualify under the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences track?

Projects must be rooted in artistic practice and/or humanistic/interpretive inquiry. Quantitative methods are permitted in this track (e.g. digital humanities), but only insofar as they support the creation and/or interpretation of artistic and/or cultural phenomena.

What if the external agency requires my project to be classified as Other Sponsored Activities?

Exceptions may be requested if the external sponsor requires a different classification for the research activities, so long as the full, federally negotiated F&A rate is charged. Teams will be asked for clarification and/or justification.

Are training grants eligible?

Grant Booster aims to support collaborative research projects. Training grants such as NIH T32s are not eligible. Other types of grants with a research training component, such as the NSF NRT program, could be considered for support.

Note that, while NRC-FLAS grants fulfill this requirement, they are likely to be ineligible for the Grant Booster program due to their restricted F&A rate.

My project is not eligible. How can I get support?

Requests for VPDoR support (e.g., for mandatory cost sharing if required by a given funding opportunity) can still be made outside of this initiative using the VPDoR Institutional Support Request Form, and VPDoR will take the contributions through this program into account, if applicable.

Whom can I contact with additional questions?

PIs with questions about eligibility and program requirements may contact Jessica Boydston, Program Manager for Limited Submissions and Seed Grants, at rdo-funding-programs@stanford.edu.