The MIT Energy Initiative Seed Fund Program supports innovative, early-stage clean energy research, encouraging researchers from across the Institute to collaborate in exploring new energy-related ideas and to open up new avenues for research.
Since the first round in 2008, MITEI has made over 230 awards totaling more than $29 million. Every year we make awards of up to $150,000 each for exploratory projects that show great promise for high-impact, transformative energy research. Winning proposals have come from PIs representing 29 DLCs across MIT, and we encourage submissions from all disciplines. The program is a great way to engage with MITEI and each year, it attracts well-established energy experts as well as new faculty new to MIT or new to energy research and others who are applying their expertise in different fields to energy for the first time.
Funding is provided through the MITEI Founding and Sustaining Members Program, as well as philanthropic support. All MIT faculty and research staff with principal investigator privileges are eligible.
This program supports research ideas that are exploratory with high potential impact and long time horizons. The program is not intended to provide additional resources for projects that are already underway, or incremental in nature. You can read about awards from recent rounds in spring of 2024 and spring of 2023.
Proposals across the energy spectrum that advance the energy transition, and related environmental research areas are welcome, including in science, technology, and social sciences. We welcome proposals on topics you find novel and potentially transformative. Proposals that address innovative technologies with potential to significantly accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reductions while meeting growing global energy needs are particularly appropriate. Proposals primarily focused on systems, economics, or policy analyses using established methodologies would be better directed to the calls for proposals issued by MITEI’s Future Energy System Center, which is much more likely to fund that type of research.
The call for proposals is issued annually in November with a January deadline. Decisions are announced in the spring. Proposals must be submitted online using the MITEI Seed Fund online application. Proposals must include a reviewer abstract, a public abstract, a preliminary budget, and be no longer than five pages. MITEI funds a limited number of projects. However, the Seed Fund Program is an efficient way for faculty to present ideas and interests to a group of member companies that sponsor the most research. Even if proposals are not initially selected for an award, the program offers the opportunity to initiate a relationship with sponsors that have intersecting interests, which has in the past yielded funding as part of members’ sponsored research portfolios, or philanthropically funded projects.
Please contact Brian Hodder at bhodder@mit.edu to be added to our mailing list and to be notified when the online application is available, or if you would like additional information.
