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Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies

RWJF Health & Society Scholars Program

Seed Grant Program

We are no longer accepting applications for the Fall 2009 round of the
RWJF Health and Society Scholars Seed Grant Program. 
Please check back in February for the Spring 2010 round announcement.


Click here to view a listing of previous seed grant awards from 2004-2008.

Purpose

The RWJ Health and Society Scholars Program at Harvard trains scholars in the social determinants of health through a tightly knit, interdisciplinary program integrating social, behavioral, and biological sciences leavened with a rich historical perspective.

The program is an interdisciplinary university initiative that integrates activities from four schools: The School of Public Health, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, the Medical School and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Our training program is based on a foundation of four core disciplines that guide our vision of the emerging field of population health. These are: social epidemiology, public policy, history of science, and biological pathways.

Through the RWJ HSS, we are able to sponsor this competitive seed grant program. Priority will be given to (1) pilot projects with a high potential for integrating the theories, questions, and methods of two or more disciplines [e.g., epidemiology and economics, or psychology and neuroscience]; (2) projects that involve high payoff in terms of opening new areas of inquiry, or that provide crucial preliminary data for preparing larger grant proposals [e.g., to the NIH]; and (3) projects with identifiable outcomes in terms of linking faculty and scholars across Departments and Schools.

Eligibility

This is a competitive grant program with a limited amount of funding available. It is open to all Harvard University faculty and affiliated post-doctoral research scholars. Students are not eligible to apply for these funds. If you are unsure about your eligibility please contact Laura Price at lprice@hsph.harvard.edu.

**Typically, international research cannot be funded pursuant to guidelines laid out by the RWJF.**

Use of Funds:

We will fund individual investigators or teams of investigators for pilot research consistent with the aims of the Health & Society Scholars Program as described briefly above and in the pages of this web site.

Selection criteria include: relevance to the aims of the Scholars program, presence of a multidisciplinary approach, development of a research emphasis not currently prominent, potential for knowledge transfer, and the likelihood of success in a one-year period.

Proposals must identify a product such as a grant proposal, pilot research report, or other specific deliverable(s). Funded investigators will be expected to present in the RWJ Health & Society Scholars Seminar in Fall 2009 and to provide a short report on activity at the end of the grant period. Multiple proposals will be funded with awards in two categories: (1) small pilot grants up to $10,000 or (2) larger grants up to $30,000.

Application Procedure:

To apply for either category of award, please submit a one page letter of intent by October 16, 2009 via email that includes the following information:

  • Proposal Title
  • Name and Information of Principal Investigator (name, position title, degrees, phone and email)
  • Name and Affiliation of Co-investigators
  • Abstract of Proposed Research
  • Award Category--Small pilot up to $10,000 or larger grant up to $30,000

***Upon review, we will notify you as to whether you will be invited to submit a full proposal.

Deadlines:

Your letter of intent should be submitted as a Word attachment to an email by Friday, October 16, 2009. The subject line for your email should be: "RWJ-Letter of Intent-Fall 2009." Send to Laura Price at lprice@hsph.harvard.edu

For those who are subsequently invited to submit a full proposal, the deadline for submission of the full proposal will be by 5:00 PM on Friday. November 13, 2009. The page-limit for the full proposal is five pages. Appendices that include relevant CVs and citations will also be requested.

Other Information:

If you are eventually awarded a seed grant, we will need your IRB protocol number OR exemption number before an account can be set-up and you can begin charging to it. You will then have a year to complete the project.