Spring 2024
ISSR provides seed grants to ASU faculty seeking external funding in the social sciences. Social science research is done across many fields, including the traditional fields of sociology, anthropology, psychology, social psychology, economics, and political science, but also in communications, criminal justice, law, journalism, education, nursing, medicine, gerontology, social work, environmental science, computer engineering, and more. Seed grants of up to $8,000 are available to researchers on all four ASU campuses.
Proposal Contents
Proposals must include:
- Brief summary of the work to be done (no more than 1500 words)
- Bibliography
- Budget, with justification (must include ASC and any other fees in total budget)
- Your current CV
- For agencies that allow contact with program officers: Name and email address or phone number of a program officer, and a summary of your discussion with that program officer. For agencies that require letters of intent, include a copy of that letter with your seed grant proposal and any response from the agency.
Deadlines:
- January 2, 2024 - Spring 2024 Submission Link Live
- February 28, 2024 - Deadline to Submit Proposals
- Award announcement mid-May funds may be used immediately upon deposit into your research account
- Email submissions will not be accepted
Requirements for Awardees
The deliverable on ISSR seed grants is a proposal, submitted to an external granting or contract agency within the project timeline.
- If a seed grant involves the collection and analysis of data for inclusion in a proposal, then awardees will also be expected to submit a report on their findings (no more than three pages).
- Brief update report to ISSR each semester.
- Awardees will be invited to participate in workshops, seminars, and social events organized by ISSR.
- When submitting proposals through ASU's ERA system, as an ISSR Seed Grant recipient, we ask that you list CLAS - SS: Social Science Research, Institute for (ISSR) B1757 - approver name Sherry Thurston, on the Center line with 1% recognition (REC). No monetary distribution is required (0% in the IIA and RID fields). More details will be sent in your award letter.
Eligibility
Anyone at ASU who is eligible to apply for a grant or contract from external agencies for support of research or training or applications projects is eligible to apply for ISSR seed-grant support. Researchers may apply once per semester. Awardees from previous semesters are still eligible to apply for new funding.
ISSR / Barrett College Fellows Undergraduate Research Program Collaboration
After receiving an ISSR seed grant, investigators are eligible to post their projects with the Barrett College Fellows Undergraduate Research Program to recruit Barrett honors students as research assistants or interns. Please email Paul LePore, paul.lepore@asu.edu, to list your project.
ISSR / ASU Library Collaboration
Connecting with ASU Library: In partnership with the social science division at ASU Library, the ISSR offers the opportunity for seed grant recipients to be matched with subject librarians and specialists in literature reviews, data management, and analysis, who will work with ISSR grant recipients at no cost.
Criteria for Evaluation of Proposals:
The criteria applied by reviewers for NSF and NIH proposals are useful guidelines for researchers who are applying for seed grants from the ISSR.
Reviewers for NSF proposals, for example, ask whether the proposed research has the potential to advance knowledge and understanding within a field or across different fields. This is the criterion known as intellectual merit. Reviewers also look for creative and original ideas and ask whether the plan for carrying out proposed research is sound. Reviewers ask if the investigator(s) are qualified to conduct the research proposed and whether the PI (either at the home institution or through collaboration with others) has the resources needed to carry out the research. Proposals to NSF also must have a statement about the broader impacts—the benefits to society—of the proposed work.
What can the funds be used for?
Seed grants from ISSR funds can be used for any of the following:
- Course Release - please note: course release is not course buy-out. Some researchers need time off from teaching in order to prepare a major proposal. ISSR funds can be used to hire a faculty associate to teach a course normally covered by faculty. If you ask for funds for a faculty associate, include with your application a letter from your department or the director of your school indicating that she or he supports your request.
- Travel. Funds may be used to pay for travel necessary to the development of a proposal. Most collaborative work in writing proposals, however, can be done with Zoom or Google Docs or similar software. For large, multi-year research projects, travel to visit potential granting agencies can be funded separately through OKED's TRIPS program (Travel of Research Investigators to Potential Sponsors).
- Student workers. Support for student workers, either graduate or undergraduate, will be in the form of hourly student-worker wages.
- Software and data relevant to the proposal.
- Collection of preliminary data, including surveys or in-depth interviews. ISSR does not provide survey research services, but ISSR funds may be used to purchase those services. Click HERE for information on survey research services
- Publication fees will not be supported by an ISSR seed grant.
FAQs click HERE