The Stanford Bio-X Interdisciplinary Initiatives Seed Grant Program (IIP) funds proposals that enhance interdisciplinary research among the Stanford scientific communities in areas related to bioengineering, biosciences, and biomedicine.
The IIP awards provide seed funding for high-risk, high-reward collaborative proposals including basic research leading to fundamental discoveries, as well as innovative technology.
By enabling scientists involved in technology development to work in highly collaborative ways with discovery scientists across a broad array of disciplines, the Stanford Bio-X program accelerates the pace of innovation. Stanford Bio-X is a fertile environment for visionaries, and the IIP awards give them the seed funding they need to allow high-risk ideas to germinate and grow. In this way, the IIP awards have a unique purpose and profound rewards.
IIP awards are given to teams of faculty with early-stage, high-risk ideas that couldn’t be funded by traditional sources.
Our Investment: Stanford Bio-X awards approximately $4 million every other year in the form of two-year seed grants. The current two-year grant level is $200,000 per project. From inception in 2000 through the eighth round in 2016, the program has provided critical early-stage funding to 187 interdisciplinary projects involving more than 300 faculty representing five Stanford Schools and dozens of departments.
The IIP awards have stimulated a striking increase in the number and diversity of collaborations between faculty across Stanford University.
Scientific Rewards: By providing Stanford faculty with the seed funding necessary to demonstrate the feasibility of their ideas, the IIP awards catalyze intellectual property and start-up companies, in addition to making the faculty much more competitive for federal grants, which contribute valuable resources to the university.
The first six rounds of IIP awards resulted in over $220 million in external funding awarded to the university. This tenfold return on investment by the IIP awards has supported hundreds of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, resulted in hundreds of publications and dozens of patents filed, and accelerated the pace of scientific discovery and innovation.
Learn more about the Seed Grants in the Bio-X white paper
| ROUND 1 - (Awarded October 2000) | ROUND 5 - (Awarded in September 2010) |
| ROUND 2 - (Awarded November 2002) | ROUND 6 - (Awarded in September 2012) |
| ROUND 3 - (Awarded September 2006) | ROUND 7 - (Awarded September 2014) |
| ROUND 4 - (Awarded September 2008) | ROUND 8 - (Awarded September 2016) |
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