Call for Proposals: Third Round of Start-Up Funding Open for Researchers and Practitioners Working to Improve People’s Lives

Stanford Impact Labs is pleased to announce our third call for proposals for Impact Lab Start-Up Funding. These two-year, $250,000 per year, investments will be allocated on a competitive basis to new or existing teams that are working with external partners to put scientific insights to work for society. 

In its first two years, we invested more than $5 million in impact labs. We expect to invest at least another $2.5 million in five to seven teams during this round of funding. Past awardees are using their funding to support teams of researchers and practitioners in the public and social sectors who are working together to improve police-community relations in San Francisco, reduce water pollution with the Environmental Protection Agency, and improve school readiness with the Washington State government, and more. You can read more about our start-up fund  investments on our website.

Proposals will be evaluated based on several criteria, including the understanding of the social problem, pathway from science to impact, the strength of the partnership, scientific contribution, team and educational contribution. SIL does not support projects that are designed only to generate research for academic audiences. Proposals will be reviewed by an investment committee of external practitioners, faculty, and staff. 

We are implementing a few key changes to our review process in this round based on our experience in previous years. We will only seek additional information and a full proposal from the most promising applicants, and will provide opportunities for teams to revise their proposals in response to feedback from the investment commitment. Consequently, we will give more weight to initial letters of interest this year, so we encourage applicants to carefully review the guidance and recommendations.

The Stanford Impact Labs team will host multiple information sessions on-line to engage interested applicants directly about the process and answer any questions. Those sessions will happen October 5th, 2021 at 1pm, October 14th, 2021 at 2:30pm and October 19, 2021 at 12pm. Prior registration is required. If you're unable to attend the information sessions, see this recording of the October 5th session.

Letters of Interest of no more than three pages are due by Friday, Oct 29th. Find more information and how to apply here.