⏰ Tuesday, January 19, 2027, 12:00pm (Noon) Pacific Time
👥 UC Berkeley
💲Maximum $30,000
The UC Berkeley Office of Energy, Climate & Environment invites proposals from campus faculty, professional researchers, or postdoctoral fellows for funding under its Seed Grant Program, which supports new or multi-disciplinary approaches to work in sustainability, energy, climate, and the environment.
Submission Deadline: Tuesday, January 19, 2027 at 12:00pm (Noon) PT.
Please read the following information before submitting a proposal. Thank you for your interest.
Priority Areas for Funding
- A) Early-stage research and new lines of inquiry in sustainability, energy, climate, and environment topics that could form the basis for a full proposal to external funding channels, including state, federal, major donor, and private foundation sources.
- B) New project pilots that enable faculty or professional researchers whose work is not normally focused on sustainability, energy, climate, or environment topics to explore potential pathways to extend their research to one of these areas or enable faculty already working in one of these fields to extend their work in new directions in the realm of climate, energy, and environment.
- C) Multidisciplinary research in sustainability, energy, climate, or environment topics involving collaboration among two or more faculty members who represent two or more Departments, Colleges, or Schools and who have not previously published together or done jointly funded research.
- D) Workshops to convene researchers and/or external partners (academic, community, government, private sector, or other partners) to develop novel work that addresses emerging or understudied topics in sustainability, energy, climate, and environment.
Selection Criteria
Proposals will be evaluated with following criteria:
- Alignment with any of the categories A-D above.
- Likelihood that the proposed activity can be successfully executed within 18 months.
- Potential of the project to lead to publications in peer-reviewed journals or other venues, public data products, and/or be translated to decision-makers.
- Potential to leverage external funding to extend the research; create a viable and sustainable academic community around an emerging sustainability, climate, energy, or environment topic; cultivate new on or off campus partnerships; and/or promote new lines of inquiry at Berkeley after grant funding ends.
- Final projects may be selected to represent a diverse portfolio of methodologies, approaches, and geographic and focus areas.
Eligibility and Terms
Amount: Award requests should not exceed $30,000. Six to eight awards will be granted depending on the volume and size of requests.
Duration: Awards are for a period of 12-18 months. Funds will be awarded before the end of the Spring 2027 semester and must be used by November 30, 2028.
Allowable Uses:
- Summer salary, graduate or undergraduate research assistant salary, fringe, and fees; fieldwork costs; compensation for community partners, or other honoraria and stipends; travel; and/or workshop or convening costs.
- Equipment purchases or rental are allowable, but will not be prioritized.
- Ladder-rank faculty are encouraged not to include more than one month of salary support.
- Teaching buyout is not an allowable use.
- The ECE Office may request budget modification to selected projects if needed.
Deliverables:
- Awardees will provide a short final report on use of funds and outcomes (template to be provided) with appendices of research output (e.g., articles, reports, data products, workshop agendas and summaries) within 30 days of the end of the project.
- Awardees may be asked to present the results of their research at a forum to be determined.
Other Requirements and Conditions:
- Applicants can only send in one proposal per cycle as Lead Researcher.
- Lead Researchers must hold a current appointment as a postdoctoral fellow, lecturer or teaching professor, professor, or other professional researcher classification at UC Berkeley.
- Any unspent funds must be returned at the end of a project unless the AP-ECE Office provides written approval to extend the award past the project's end date. No-cost extensions must be requested prior to the project close date and cannot exceed 6 months.
Assurance of Compliance: Recipients are expected to comply with all University policies governing the conduct of research including, but not limited to, IRB and human subjects protection.
How to Submit a Proposal
Proposals should be submitted as one consolidated document in PDF format, with application components and appendices clearly labeled. Proposals must be submitted in a common font (e.g., Times New Roman, Arial, Calibri) no smaller than font size 10, with margins no smaller than .5 inches.
Proposals should be submitted via email to Moose O’Donnell mooseo@berkeley.edu by Noon (12:00 PM) on Tuesday, January 19, 2027.
The email subject should be titled:
ECE Seed Grant Application: [LEAD RESEARCHER LAST NAME]
Example:
ECE Seed Grant Application: Lee
The proposal should include the following components, and not exceed the stated page limits. Application components do not need to meet the page limit; as long as you provide sufficient information, components are welcome to be shorter than the page limit.
| Application Component | Page Limit |
|---|---|
| Title Page: Application Form | Use the provided application form |
| Section 1: Project description | Up to 2 pages, not including references |
| Section 2: Description of fieldwork site, project client, and project partners (if applicable) | Up to 2 pages |
| Section 3: Dissemination plan (e.g., publications, digital tools, and/or applicable distribution plan for any data collected and any research outcomes/findings) | Up to 1 page |
| Section 4: Budget outline. The outline can include travel, facilities, some equipment, salary (e.g., GSR), fringe, fees, honoraria, stipends, etc. | Up to 1 page |
| Section 5: Impact and continuity plan. Describe how the project will promote new lines of inquiry, leverage external funding to extend the work, create an academic community around an emerging topic, support new multidisciplinary collaboration, and/or reach decision-makers to advance policy or regulatory change. Describe how the work will continue after grant funding ends. | Up to 1 page |
| Section 6: References | No page limit |
| Appendices | |
| Appendix A: CVs for the Lead Researcher and any co-Lead Researchers | No page limit |
| Appendix B: Letters of collaboration from partners (if applicable) | Up to 2 pages per letter |
| Appendix C: List of required equipment and approvals (if applicable) | No page limit |
| Appendix D: List of necessary approvals for project initiation (if applicable). If human subjects are involved, Institutional Review Board approval is required prior to issuing the award. | No page limit |
Contact Us
Thank you for your interest. If you have questions, please contact Moose O’Donnell mooseo@berkeley.edu.