Do you have a budding idea for a research project, but need to formulate it? Do you want to collaborate with a new colleague? Maybe an industry or community partner? The RI Network for Excellence in Science and Technology’s (RI-NEST) Seed Grant program may be for you.
Seed grants support original academic research projects that have high-potential for follow-on funding opportunities and center creative partnerships between academia, community groups, or industry.
Requirements & Grant Structure
- Grants of up to $20,000.00 are available to faculty and eligible research staff at any institution of higher education within Rhode Island. All grant application budgets must include overhead costs as required by their institutions and cannot exceed $20,000.00. The inclusion of students and post doctoral fellows as staff and/or collaborators are highly encouraged
- Grants of up to $7,500 are available to graduate students enrolled in full time PhD programs within Rhode Island. All grant application budgets must include overhead costs as required by their institutions and cannot exceed $7,500.00.
- Individuals or organizations listed on any grant as collaborators must be headquartered and/or based in Rhode Island.
- All research activities must be implemented in Rhode Island.
- Postdoctoral fellows and graduate students are encouraged to submit applications, but submissions must follow the policies on principal investigator eligibility of their respective institutions. If you are a graduate student and/or postdoctoral fellow and are ineligible to be a PI, you must find a faculty sponsor to support your application.
- Projects and workshops submitted for funding must align with at least one core theme or cross-cutting capability of the State of Rhode Island’s Science and Technology Action Plan .
- All grant activities must take place between September 1, 2026-August 31 2027.
*Note that the Infoready portal is open to non-URI applicants, as well.
Preferred projects will integrate at least ONE of the following dimensions:
- Collaborations with local, state, tribal, or federal government agencies, or support indigenous interests in the state, including tribal student success.
- Collaborations with industry, NGOs, or community advocacy organizations (such as watershed councils, community development agencies, and neighborhood associations)
- Public science communication and visualization methodologies and products, including outputs that include multimedia, oral history, and interactive web-projects.
- Projects that increase participation in STEAM for K-12 students, including curricula development.
- The inclusion of undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows as staff and/or collaborators are highly encouraged.
- Coastal resilience, aquaculture, and blue economy/workforce development.
Applications due
by 11:59:00 PM EST on Friday, July 24, 2026. All awardees will be notified of their award on or before August 26, 2026.
Please submit questions using this google form and a member of RI-NEST staff will be in touch.
You may also attend a seed grant info session on Tuesday, June 23 at 2pm ET.
Preparing your proposal
- Grant submissions must be done in coordination with each primary PI’s Office of Sponsored Project office and be approved for institutional compliance before submission to RI-NEST. *
- For research involving human subjects, please note that any awarded funds will not be disbursed until after a letter of exemption or approval from your institution’s IRB has been submitted to RI-NEST.
- PhD students are required to meet with RI-NEST staff before submission of a project to ensure fit and feasibility. Please contact Dr. Scott Schnur at scott.schnur@uri.edu to arrange a meeting if needed.
- NSF allowed costs must be directly related to the project and inside the period of performance. Cost must be necessary, reasonable and allocable to the program.
- Proposals must be submitted through Infoready**.
*URI applicants do NOT need to coordinate with URI OSP to submit a proposal. Applicants from all institutions other than URI must still coordinate their submissions with the OSP of their institutions.
**For URI applicants only: Submissions for this program do not have to be routed through URI InfoEd. Complete your submission using InfoReady only. Please reach out to Laura Bellavia at lbellavia@uri.edu
with your questions about budgeting and overhead costs.
Want to learn more, join our community and offer your unique perspective on RI NSF EPSCoR and programs like RI-NEST?
RI NSF EPSCoR is supported in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation under EPSCoR Cooperative Agreements #OIA-2433276 and in part by the RI Commerce Corporation via the Science and Technology Advisory Committee [STAC]. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation, the RI Commerce Corporation, STAC, our partners or our collaborators.