Other UW Funding Sources

The Royalty Research Fund (RRF) is a competitive awards program that provides research support to University of Washington faculty. The RRF is funded by royalty and licensing fee income generated by the University’s technology transfer program. The Royalty Research Fund has been offered twice a year since 1992. In 1994, the RRF Scholar Program was initiated to provide one quarter of release time for faculty with full teaching loads to engage in concentrated scholarly activities. The RRF welcomes proposals with budgets up to $40,000. Approximately $1M is awarded per round. The success rate for applicants averages 25%.

The Bridge Funding program provides bridge funding to support faculty to span a temporary funding gap in critical research programs.  Bridge Funding awards are typically used to support on-going research programs that have lost funding, although these funds may also be used to support new research directions, at the discretion of the recipient.

ITHS offers funds for novel, innovative, and collaborative translational and clinical research. They also engage in collaborative partnerships with non-ITHS programs that provide funding for more targeted research opportunities.

Please check each funding opportunity for specific eligibility criteria, which are dependent on the requirements of the funding sources. These criteria may be based on topic area, academic affiliation, geography (e.g., Puget Sound area, WWAMI region), or other factors.

The Center for AIDS Research is a collaboration between the University of Washington and Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). Their mission is to advance the prevention, detection, and treatment of HIV and AIDS by fostering collaborative and interdisciplinary research, supporting career development in young investigators, and serving researchers and scientists at our affiliated institutions.

Please note that the availability of funding opportunities vary throughout the year. Please check back often or join their mailing list to receive email notifications when new opportunities become available.

The Population Health Initiative “seeks to create a world where all people can live healthier and more fulfilling lives. In support of that vision, the initiative is pleased to offer population health pilot research grants of up to $50,000 each…. These grants are intended to encourage the development of new interdisciplinary collaborations among investigators for projects that address critical challenges to population health.”

The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences (CSSS) Seed Grants Program provides funding for promising research at the intersection of statistics and the social sciences. The goal is to stimulate scholarly initiative by encouraging faculty to explore new directions in research and scholarship that contributes at the cutting edge to the development of statistical methods for social scientific problems. Although we encourage collaborative research across disciplines–particularly between statisticians and social scientists–such collaboration is not a formal requirement of the program. We are particularly interested in projects that show a high probability of leading to extramural funding. Thus, the funds will typically be used to pursue pilot studies, feasibility studies, or preliminary research that initiates a larger line of research. A subsequent extramural grant that derives from seed grant funding would be administered through CSSS. Awards will be in the range of $15,000-25,000, and typically include one-month summary salary for a principal investigator and one quarter salary for a research assistant. In the past, proposals have had a high rate of funding.

The Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute (formerly the Alcohol & Drug Abuse Institute) works to stimulate and facilitate UW research on alcohol and drug use and addiction through its Small Grants Program, which awards funds to UW researchers for pilot studies and developmental research. The scope ranges from pharmacology of drugs to studies of clinical treatment strategies, prevention, and social policy issues. UW researchers should consider the Small Grants Program as a resource to help develop research through initial funding for promising pilot projects which may ultimately be developed into full studies with outside funding.

The University of Washington Nathan Shock Center and Healthy Aging and Longevity Research Institute are soliciting applications to support pilot projects in the biology of aging. The projects should utilize the specific services provided by one or more of the UW Nathan Shock Center Cores. The cores include Protein Phenotypes of Aging, Metabolite Phenotypes of Aging, Invertebrate Longevity and Healthspan Core, and the Artificial Intelligence and Bioinformatics Core. The awards are generally up to $10,000, depending on the specific needs of the applicant. Applications from institutions outside of the University of Washington are strongly encouraged. Preference will be given to junior faculty and investigators new to aging research.

The clinicians and researchers at UW Medicine have the insight to develop projects that enhance the quality and safety of patient care at UW Medicine, and those projects need guidance and funding. UW sought to tap this insight and support it, creating the Patient Safety Innovations Program (PSIP).

PSIP provides pilot funding and expert guidance to innovative projects that improve patient safety and quality of care, reduce medical-legal expenses, and strengthen the academic environment around patient safety.

Funds are available from the Fred Hutch/University of Washington Cancer Consortium (“The Consortium”) Cancer Center Support Grant (CCSG) to support cancer-related pilot projects. This competition will provide awards of up to $80,000 direct costs (plus F&A/indrect costs as allowable) for one year of pilot project support.