Have a research idea but no grant money yet? Our awards are designed to support UVA faculty en route to a larger and more competitive research grant.
Our mission is to support UVA researchers running studies with mobile apps and wearable devices. Our award program is specifically for UVA faculty PIs, with two primary aims:
At least one principal investigator must hold faculty status at UVA to be eligible for a award.
Seed grant projects should have a one-year timeline. They may last two or three years if a strong case can be made.
Proposals should be related to either: (1) adding functionality to our ecosystem in support of research — for example, collecting data from a new wearable device or new functionality in our app — or (2) running a study in our existing ecosystem.
Seed grants typically cover one new feature in our ecosystem (such as data collection from a new device or a new kind of user interaction in our apps) and direct support for a two-month study.
We highly recommend booking a consultation meeting with us before you apply. We can help you improve your application and appropriately scope your proposal. You can request a consultation through any avenue on our contact page.
Applications can be submitted at any time. We will respond to your proposal within one month.
To apply, the PI submits a short application (two pages maximum, not including references). We provide the template below, but you are not required to use it — any submission that addresses these points is welcome:
Who are the project's principal investigators (please include computing ID and department for UVA faculty)?
What is the title of your project?
Briefly describe your research project and its goals.
What is the ideal timeline for your project, and what are the major milestones DTC can support?
How many participants do you hope to recruit for your study and for how long (we don't need exact numbers)?
How do you see a MAP Lab grant supporting future grants or research goals in the future?
Applications are evaluated on:
Recipients do not receive cash or vouchers from us. Instead, our staff work with recipients to allocate engineering time to your project. We continue to work with you until all proposed software functionality has been provided and / or the research study has been completed.
PIs must acknowledge our team (and its parent organization) in any publication, presentation, or poster that results from the work done for the award. Additionally, at the end of the award, PIs agree to have a brief blurb about the research project posted on our website.
Reach out for a free consultation before you apply.