- Notice of Intent to Submit Deadline: September 17, 2025, and March 18, 2026
- Proposal Deadline: October 1, 2025, and April 1, 2026
Notices of intent to submit must be submitted via email, and proposals must be submitted in NuRamp (https://nuramp.nebraska.edu). Sign in to NuRamp using your institutional credentials.
For guidelines on how to prepare and submit an internal proposal to this competition, download the Request for Proposals.
Program Overview
Biomedical Research Seed Grants enhance the competitiveness of UNL faculty submitting grant proposals to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Given that evidence of prior work or preliminary data is an essential component of most biomedical research proposals submitted to NIH, awardees receive seed funding to facilitate preliminary study and/or data collection to strengthen a future NIH proposal submission. The expected outcome for these grants is for UNL principal investigators to improve competitiveness of NIH R21 or R01 proposals.
While not an exhaustive list of allowable activities, seed funds may be used to:
- Accumulate evidence in support of a working hypothesis.
- Demonstrate the feasibility of a new approach.
- Build reviewers’ confidence in the project team’s ability to handle cutting-edge technologies, understand methods, and interpret results.
Applicants to this program must submit a draft of their NIH R21 or R01 proposal and will receive substantive, constructive feedback on the draft proposal from expert external reviewers.
Biomedical Research Seed Grants are made possible by support from the Nebraska Tobacco Settlement Biomedical Research Fund and are administered by the UNL Office of Research and Innovation.
Faculty are strongly encouraged to contact Matthew Dwyer at mdwyer4@unl.edu or 402-472-1661 before submitting a Biomedical Research Seed Grant notice of intent to submit/proposal to discuss eligibility and appropriateness of the project for this program.
