Research Opportunity Seed Fund

The Research Opportunity Seed Fund is an annual seed grant program that awards multidisciplinary, faculty-initiated research projects with strong potential for extramural support. Guided by the philosophy that diverse partnerships across the disciplines drive groundbreaking research and winning proposals, ROSF awards strive to spark research synergies that can launch exceptional long term research collaborations.

Responsive proposals will meet each of the five following criteria:

  1. New Collaborations: Proposals must involve faculty from at least two colleges. PI and Co-PIs will be from different departments or colleges and not worked together on a funded proposal previously.
  2. Novel Research: Proposals present new and fresh ideas—no supplements to PI or Co-PIs’ existing or on-going research.
  3. Meaningful Contributions: All investigators engage fully and substantially. Proposals must demonstrate involvement both in terms of proposed research as well as allocations for funding in the budget.
  4. Funding Potential: Proposals show a feasible and realistic plan for PIs and Co-PIs to continue collaborating to pursue funded research after the conclusion of the ROSF award. Teams and ideas are not “once and done” collaborations.
  5. High Impact: Proposals address significant hypotheses, problems, or research questions that cover multiple areas of expertise and can be understood by non-technical readers.

Eligibility

Proposals may be submitted by any UF faculty member (PI) eligible to submit a proposal to an external funding agency (see Policy on Eligibility to Submit a Proposal for External Funding: https://research.ufl.edu/dsp/proposals/eligibility-to-submit-a-proposal-for-external-funding.html ).

PIs cannot be:

  • Courtesy, Adjunct, Visiting, or OPS faculty
  • Assistant In, Associate In, Senior Associate In, Research Associates or Postdoctoral associates
  • Deans at any level

Excluding Deans, Co-PIs can be any of the above, as well as staff and curators. Cross-department collaborations are welcome.

Similar to NIH and other large funding agencies, applicants resubmitting to the ROSF must provide previous ROSF reviews and a short description of how their resubmission addresses reviewer feedback. These statements will not be provided to reviewers.

Awarded faculty (either as a PI or as Co-PI) are not allowed to participate in another Research Opportunity Seed Fund proposal in any role for one year after completion of the first award. For example, awardees in 2025 may not submit another proposal until the 2029 call (announced in 2028) – one year after the conclusion of their project in 2027.

Faculty can only submit through one college. PIs may not switch projects or colleges to maximize their changes of being selected to submit to the ROSF.

College of Medicine internal selection process (LOI Stage)

Each year, the College of Medicine will announce an opportunity for faculty interested in applying to the Research Opportunity Seed Fund. Through an internal selection process, the college will select its best proposals and those will be submitted to UF Research and will undergo a uniform and centrally coordinated scientific review by ad-hoc faculty panels for final funding decisions.

Letter of Intent (LOI) Instructions

A Letter of Intent is required to be considered for the award. LOIs will be reviewed and select projects will be invited to submit a full application. The LOI should consist of the following materials in this sequence, submitted as ONE pdf file:

  • Cover page: that includes project title, submitting investigator, submitting investigator department, and names of all co-investigators and their departments.
  • Project Description: One-page technical summary inclusive of a description of the multidisciplinary, collaborative nature of the project
  • NIH- or NSF-style biosketch for each investigator
  • Statement of current and pending support
  • (If a resubmission) Required resubmission documents as noted below

Applicants resubmitting to the ROSF must include the previous year’s reviews as well as a one-page response that:

  • Summarizes substantial additions, deletions, and changes to the application.
  • Responds to the issues and criticism raised in the reviewer comments.

NOTE: if the scope of the project has significantly changed, the resubmission document is not required.

If you have any questions, please contact Katie Blackburn katherineblackbu@ufl.edu.