Seed fund

The seed fund provides an opportunity for scientific staff of the UG and UMCG to receive up to €5,000 for ongoing or future public engagement projects. All submissions are screened for eligibility by a jury consisting of University of Groningen and UMCG employees, after which five eligible projects are randomly selected to get the funding they requested. Indeed, the Public Engagement seed fund rewards those staff members of the UG and UMCG that want to engage the public without unnecessary competitiveness, and distributes available funding in a manner that acknowledges the element of luck in funding awards.

It takes time and effort to engage society in research, which is currently too often perceived as an investment without clear career benefits. Hopefully, the Public Engagement seed fund will provide  acknowledgement to  those UG and UMCG staff members who aim to engage the public, and will serve as encouragement for the rest.

First Seed Funding call

The four winners of the first seed funding call were announced in January 2023. We received 27 applications, of which 7 met the selection criteria. Read more about the projects of the four lucky winners who received a grant of up to €5,000.

Second call for seed funding is now open!

The deadline for applications for the second round of funding is Wednesday, 12 April at 23:59h. Read more about the goals and criteria, and apply through the form Public Engagement Seed Funding.

The fund will run until September 2023 as part of the UG Open Science Programme. The continuation of the fund beyond September 2023 is conditional on funding renewal by the UG.

If you have any questions, please email to pe rug.nl.