Seed Grants Program

Our Seed Grants program sparks new collaborations between scientists from across the University to engage in innovative, collaborative research projects in the neurosciences. 

Seed grant research projects should involve at least two independent co-PI's who combine their expertise in an innovative fashion to address important problems in basic and clinical neuroscience.

We encourage applications from teams forming unique connections between neuroscience and other bastions of disciplinary strength at Stanford: 

  1. engineering and the quantitative sciences
  2. chemical and molecular biology
  3. the social sciences, humanities and professional schools of education, law and business
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Applying for Seed Grants

Seed Grant competitions occur every two years. Awards of $300,000 each ($150,000/year for two years) are awarded to up to five research teams. 

Funded Seed Grant projects

View all Seed Grants
Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute
Seed Grant
2019
Quantifying auditory-vocal affect in human social communication

This proposal brings together faculty with this diverse expertise to develop the first gold standard test of auditory-vocal affect. Once developed, validated, and normed, we will deploy this test in the clinical context of autism to quantify impairments and direct neurobiological investigation.

Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute
Seed Grant
2017
Identification of sex hormone interacting proteins
We are interested in elucidating the multiple roles that sex hormones play in development of the nervous system and in regulating brain functions that influence gender identity, puberty, and reproduction.
Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute
Seed Grant
2021
Inflammation, Major Histocompatibility Class I and human brain development

Maternal infection is linked to increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. This proposal examines how virus-associated cytokines, specifically interferons, affect human neurons modeled in brain organoids or studied directly in fetal brain samples.

Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute
Seed Grant
2017
The impact of early medial temporal lobe Tau in human cognitive aging
By measuring the aggregation of Tau protein in healthy older adults as well as those with Alzheimer's disease dementia using positron emission tomography imaging combined with high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging, this team hopes to predict who is at most risk for dementia in the future.

Seed Grant Award Announcements

2023 - Neurosciences seed grants fuel research in childhood epilepsy, eating disorders, Alzheimer's and more

2021 - Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute announces fourth round of seed grants

2019 - Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute announces third round of seed grants

2017 - Stanford Neurosciences Institute awards second round of Seed Grants

2015 - Stanford Neurosciences Institute awards first round of Seed Grants