Faculty Seed Grant for Research in India

The seed grant funding is open to all Harvard Chan full-time Faculty. Postdocs and
research scientists may serve as co-investigators. If you are unsure about your
eligibility, please contact Dr. Swati Bakshi at swatibakshi@hsph.harvard.edu

The seed grant funds can be used to cover research-related expenses in India for a
pilot study focused on public health in India. Some of the expenses are outlined
below, but the grant is not limited to these line items. Please write to us to check if
the seed grant can be utilized to cover any other expenses in your research budget.

• Supporting a research assistant in India. The grant recipient will need to
  identify the individual and the IRC will support their recruitment and stipend
  under the seed grant.
• Access to existing data.
• Data collection activities, such as primary research, translation and
  transcription.
• Research-related travel, with prior approval of the IRC.
• Working with a partner organization in India. The grant recipient will need to identify the partner organization who can receive the funds from IRC. Grants to an implementing partner can cover expenses related to personnel, materials, hardware, software, equipment, travel etc., and will be based on budgets provided by the primary grant recipient (faculty).

The grant will be completely managed by the IRC and fund-disbursement towards
approved expenses will be handled by the IRC directly. The fund must mandatorily
be utilized within India.

While those areas of particular interest to the Center, applications that focus on other areas of public health in India may also be considered. We encourage you to apply.

Grant applicants are solely responsible for obtaining IRB approval and other research clearances. Please indicate in your application, the status of your IRB and other research clearance requests. All research involving human subjects must have approval from the applicable institutional IRB. All investigators must be trained and certified in the responsible conduct of research involving human subjects. If your research involves secondary data, you more than likely will need to apply for an exemption. If you are ultimately awarded funding, we will need either the IRB protocol number or exemption number before an account can be set-up. IRB must be obtained within six months of the award.

The seed grant is for up to 1 year, starting from September 1, 2025, and ending on August 31, 2026. The grant cannot exceed beyond August 31, 2026.

Please expect to hear from us on the status of the seed grant funding in August 2025. We aim to commence the grant in September 2025. Funds will be disbursed following the completion of any necessary administrative processes.