The SimBio Foundation

Grant Criteria

Proposals to The SimBio Foundation will only be considered if they meet the following criteria.

  • Proposals should relate to research in biology education at the undergraduate level
  • Proposals will be scored higher if they have the aim of developing a concrete product. The product does not need to be finished at the end of this grant. The proposal can have a clear aim for a product, but use this grant to get started in some way, for instance with a prototype or background research. In that case, the proposal should be clear on how this preliminary work will, if successful, set the stage to receive more funding elsewhere.
  • The proposal should include some means of publicizing the work done and data gathered on the grant so the BER community can learn from the work. There is no mandate to make the product itself free or open-source, this is at the discretion of the investigator, but there should be a plan for making the product available to the teaching community upon completion.
  • The principal investigator must be based at a U.S. institution with the capacity to administer the grant. The proposal must include a letter from the institution showing willingness to administer the grant if awarded.
  • The principal investigator on the proposal should have experience needed or be in an environment which gives confidence to reviewers that they can carry out the proposed research. A CV of maximum 2 pages should be included for the principal investigator and any other senior researchers involved, preferably in National Science Foundation format.
  • The principal investigator needs a U.S.-based institution that can administer the grant on their behalf. (Unfortunately, due to U.S. non-profit laws and the Foundation’s small size, grants cannot be issued through institutions outside the U.S. at this time.)
  • The description of the project should be a maximum of three (3) pages. Up to three additional pages of images can be included, if relevant. The project description should include information needed by reviewers to apply the rubric given on the What is Funded page.
  • Proposals should be for a maximum duration of one year.
  • The maximum proposal size that will be considered this year is $10,000.
  • A maximum of 20% of the proposal ($2,000) may be dedicated to overhead for the institution administering the grant. No proposals will be considered with more overhead than that.
  • The proposal should include a budget and budget justification, separate from the project description. These are to be a maximum of 2 pages.
  • The proposal should include evidence of preliminary human subjects approval or a submission for human subjects approval, if needed for the study. If IRB approval is pending at the time of submission and a grant is awarded, IRB approval will be needed before funds will be released.
  • All elements of the proposal should be combined into a single PDF file for upload. The pages should be single-spaced with at least 1″ margins and a font size no smaller than 11 point. The proposal should be written in English.
  • Any publications, presentations, tools, or other products which originated or were impacted by work conducted using a grant from The SimBio Foundation should acknowledge funding from the foundation.
  • The investigator(s) agree that, should they be awarded a grant, their names, institutional affiliation, picture, and an abstract of the proposal can be used in publicity about the grant by The SimBio Foundation and any affiliated organizations. Further, any resulting products which are publicly available can be linked to and/or posted on the Foundations website.
  • Investigator(s) awarded a grant will prepare and send the Foundation a final report at the end of the grant period detailing what was accomplished with the funding, an accounting of how the funds were spent and future steps.
  • Investigator(s) awarded a grant agree to welcome a visit from a representative of the Foundation during the grant period, if the Foundation requests one.
  • Officers, directors, and substantial contributors to The SimBio Foundation, grant reviewers (see below), and individuals who are or were employed or have done significant paid consulting work during the previous year for any companies associated with directors of The SimBio Foundation, as well as close relatives of all persons in categories above, will be considered to have a conflict of interest and will not be eligible to apply for grants from The SimBio Foundation.