Call for CLS Collaborative research proposals, seed funding 2025-2026
For 2025-2026, the Center for Language Science can, again, stimulate collaborative research by providing seed funding, thanks to generous support from the College of the Liberal Arts.
These seed funds are meant to encourage and support collaborative research among CLS faculty members and to provide support for the development of new and innovative research projects aimed at attracting external funding. More specifically, the seed funding grants are meant to enable pilot studies which can be used to inform and increase competitiveness of external grant proposals. The focus is on developing and strengthening collaborative research between CLS faculty. For this reason, teams should be led by two or more CLS tenure track faculty or CLS faculty with continuing multi-year appointments (although external collaborators or non-tenured researchers may be part of the team).
• Seed funding proposals range from $500-$2,500 per project.
• A proposal is submitted by (minimally) two researchers who are CLS tenure track faculty or CLS faculty with continuing multi-year appointments, who are active within the CLS.
• Deadline: rolling deadline from September 15, 2025, to January 31, 2026. Proposals can be submitted to: clsseedfunding@gmail.com and in cc to Janet van Hell, jgv3@psu.edu and Frances Blanchette, fkb1@psu.edu.
• Seed funds need to be used within the fiscal year. This means that these funds must be spent and processed with Heather Mann by June 10, 2026.
• Funding is intended to provide support for the development of new and innovative research projects, in particular the funding of pilot studies to inform and increase competitiveness of external grant proposals.
• Funding can be used to pay participants, research expenses, travel costs to field research sites (provided traveling is allowed in light of the pandemic), or research assistant time (only undergraduate RAs on wage-payroll basis; no graduate student RA can be paid because seed funds cannot cover graduate student tuition).
o Allowable travel expenses to field research sites are airfare/mileage and lodging (based on actual costs, so no per diem). Please note that Penn State regulations regarding traveling to national or international research sites are subject to change considering the COVID-19 pandemic, so please take this into account when preparing a proposal.
o Funding is intended for research-related expenses and will not cover costs that are not directly related to research/data collection or costs that are generally covered by departments, such as: team meeting expenses, meals or snacks, conference travel, delivery of outreach programs or services, student projects (masters, dissertation research), publication costs, or course release.
Review:
• A committee, consisting of faculty from different CLS-affiliated departments and who together use a wide range of research approaches within language science, will review the proposals and will make a decision within 3 weeks after the submission.
• Criteria for review: All proposals must meet the points outlined above. Priority is given to collaborative proposals that propose new and innovative research projects in the form of pilot work that can be used to inform (~proof of concept) external grant proposals and increase their competitiveness. CLS seed funding proposals should present theoretically and empirically well-grounded research questions, a well-articulated plan of research activities, evidence for access to the research population of interest, a longer-term context including grant application plan, and a budget.
Structure and submission of proposals:
• Proposals must be submitted as one document via email to clsseedfunding@gmail.com, and in cc to Janet van Hell, jgv3@psu.edu and Frances Blanchette, fkb1@psu.edu.
• The template of the proposal submission form can be found on the next page.
• Please note, if IRB approval has not yet been obtained, researchers are expected to prepare and submit the appropriate requests for IRB approval for the proposed research within two weeks after acceptance of their seed funding proposal.