The Grant Game

In today's competitive research landscape, Vanderbilt University has developed a strategic approach that's generating groundbreaking scholarship, creativity and innovation. Internal grant programs-developed by Chancellor Daniel Diermeier, Provost C. Cybele Raver and Vice Provost for Research and Innovation and Chief Research Officer Padma Raghavan-are accelerating discovery of solutions for real-world challenges.

Faculty grant awardees investigate Alzheimer's, adolescent chronic illness and depression. They develop robotic legs and AI image interpretation and repurpose aspirin and ketamine to treat preeclampsia and anxiety. They explore brain networks linked to anxiety, examine rural health disparities and work to develop gene therapies for blindness-among other groundbreaking projects.

A FULL SUITE OF FUNDING OPTIONS

Vanderbilt University offers a comprehensive suite of internal funding programs for faculty. Each program serves a distinct strategic purpose while providing faculty with targeted support across diverse disciplines of research and scholarship.

• The Rapid-Advancement MicroGrant Program provides funding of $500 to $5,000 to help faculty seize time-sensitive research opportunities and respond quickly to emerging needs and ideas.
• The Seeding Success Program supports new research directions that have strong potential for impact or future external funding. These grants provide from $5,000 to $60,000 per year for up to two years; larger amounts are considered if the proposal warrants and the program budget allows.
• The Scaling Success Program offers $5,000 to $60,000 one-year grants to help faculty expand their team research, scholarship and creative works toward larger external funding. This program supports projects with demonstrated interest from external sponsors, which enables faculty to refine their work before submitting formal proposals.

"Our internal grant program is unique in two ways," says Joanne Spitz, executive director of Research Development and Support at Vanderbilt. "We allow faculty to apply for funding across a variety of disciplines, and we offer significant awards that can really help them take their research to the next level." Spitz notes enthusiastic feedback from faculty, and deans report the grants are helping to attract top talent.

FOUNDATION FOR REAL-WORLD IMPACT

Since fall 2021, Vanderbilt has awarded more than $10.47 million through the internal grant programs, providing faculty with vital resources to develop and refine their research. These programs also serve as a springboard for securing external funding by helping researchers generate preliminary data, strengthen proposals and build collaborations that position them for competitive grants from federal agencies, private foundations and industry partners.

By equipping faculty with support at important moments in the research process, Vanderbilt helps transform promising ideas into externally funded projects:

• Assistant Professor Emily Phillips Galloway used her Scaling Success pilot study to refine a groundbreaking reading curriculum that supports multilingual middle school students. The curriculum is now being expanded.
• Professor Kelly Holley-Bockelmann, after her Scaling Success grant, gained support from the National Science Foundation to advance our understanding of dark matter's role in black hole formation, contributing to new models in astrophysics.
• Assistant Professor David Hyde built on his Seeding Success-funded work to further develop ADVISER, a cloud-based platform that models ice sheets to improve sea-level rise predictions, with NSF support.

These success stories illustrate how Vanderbilt's internal funding programs provide faculty with the foundation to pursue ambitious research that has far-reaching impact. Raghavan points to another example of how Vanderbilt's internal grants lay the groundwork for transformative breakthroughs.

"Vanderbilt's internal funding programs are critical to amplifying the impact of faculty research and innovation," she says. "Take for example the Seeding Success award a few years ago that enabled Todd Giorgio to develop biomaterials to prevent preterm birth in partnership with collaborator Jennifer Herington. That essential groundwork helped Herington take on a new multimillion-dollar project funded by ARPA-H in 2024 to advance at-home treatments to stop preterm labor-with Giorgio as a leading collaborator. That is our end goal: accelerating the delivery of life-changing discoveries into the hands of communities in need."