The Provost, in coordination with the Chancellor, the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement, and the Deans of the Colleges and Schools, launched a new initiative to support the development of large center grants at UMass. The goal of this program is to empower creativity; to promote collaborations, especially those that those that foster diversity, equity, and inclusion; and to attract substantial external funding across our colleges and schools.
Through the newly created Center Seed Fund awards of up to $50,000 are made to support faculty-led development of proposals for large center grants to support research on campus. This year, four awards were granted to collaborative efforts, already established, that are well-positioned to develop a large center grant.
Proposals for these awards were solicited in March. Applications were reviewed by a committee consisting of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement and Deans or Associate Deans from Colleges where faculty have submitted an application. Awardees were notified in May.
2020 Center Seed Fund Awards were made to the following projects:
- “Center for Ubiquitous and Robust Embedded Security (CURES)”
- "Northeast Center for Coastal Resilience (NCCR)”
- “Augmenting Assisted Living with Intelligent Sensor Tech (ASSIST)”
- “Institute for Biological Neurotechnology”
A complete list of the team members is provided here.
Any questions regarding this initiative should be directed to Mike Malone, Vice Chancellor for Research and Engagement (mmalone@umass.edu).
