Call for Seed Grant Proposals 

We envision 2-3 awards of $25,000. Note that if your institution requires indirect costs on small grants, this amount must be included in the $25,000.

Eligibility: Investigators who are eligible to be Principal Investigators of NIA-funded projects. Doctoral students cannot be PIs for these awards.

Proposals will be evaluated in terms of merit and innovation; significance, both substantive and in terms of the potential for the resulting code and data to fuel further research; involvement of early-stage investigators; potential to lead to larger scale, NIA-funded research. The potential for external funding, primarily through NIA, is an important consideration for investment of CACHE funding. In addition, we aim to fund at least one scholar representing an NIA-funded Centers on the Demographic and Economics of Aging.

In addition, the research must involve the integration of social and environmental data.

Recipients of CACHE seed funding must agree to sharing data and code through the CACHE platform (or pointing to the relevant archive), thereby further fueling the development of Aging-Health-Environment research infrastructure.

The award period is one year, with a start date of January 1st, 2027, and the funds may cover faculty summer salary, graduate student salary, research travel, and/or data acquisition. The funds cannot be used for conference travel or for group meals.

Proposal (no more than 3 single‐spaced pages) to include: 

• Proposal title and investigator names and contact information; 
• Specific Aims (in NIH format) 
• Central research questions to be addressed;  
• Significance and potential impact of the research project including as related to fueling future research by sharing integration code and data; 
• Description of innovation 
• Short literature review; 
• Description of data and methods;  
• Progress to‐date (if applicable), timeline, and planned submission date and agency for external grant proposal. Submission should be within 16 months of award. 
• References (separate from 3-page limit) 
• Budget (separate from 3-page limit, 1‐page), with major budget items, including personnel, and a brief justification 
• CVs of all investigators and list of other current grant support, if applicable 

E‐mail applications to Julia Shipman, Program Manager, Center for Aging, Health & Environemnt: cache@colorado.edu  

NOTE: Both a progress and final report will be required. Funds cannot be expended until evidence is provided of all investigators’ completion of CITI human subjects training. The funding of seed projects is contingent on the continued availability of CACHE funding.

A PDF for this funding call can be found here.