SPARK Seed Grants (Duke Science & Technology)

SPARK Seed Grants (Duke Science & Technology) is sponsored by Duke University (Office of Research and Innovation). This program aims to ignite innovative research that enables future external funding, supporting faculty in adapting to changes in the funding landscape. One example includes building expertise in the application of AI for systems beyond hydrogen generation.

DST SPARK RFP | Duke Research & Innovation Skip to main DST SPARK RFP 2026 - 2027 Request for Proposals Duke’s Office of Research and Innovation (OR&I) is pleased to support Duke Science and Technology (DST) by awarding seed grants to faculty members at Duke.

The DST SPARK Seed Grants are directed towards enhancing the creativity and novel research and scholarship of Duke’s early/mid-career faculty and will help them pursue new directions and ideas that would otherwise be difficult to fund from other sources. Faculty are encouraged to submit blue-sky ideas that have a high degree of risk, but where the long-term impact could be transformative if the outcomes fully realize their potential.

Duke University faculty, from all schools, institutes, and centers who meet the following: Associate Professors: Individuals who have been promoted or appointed to an associate professorship within the last five (5) years. Assistant Professors: Individuals who are tenure track and have served a minimum of three (3) years in the role of assistant professor by the time of award.

This includes faculty within the School of Medicine, and/or other centers or units who do not have tenure-track positions, but have at least 75% effort committed to research. **Faculty with primary appointments at Duke-NUS and Duke-Kunshan are not eligible. Applicants may request up to $150,000 with the expectation that the funds will be spent by the “Funds to be Expended by Date.

” Budgets are not required to request the full award amount and should be scaled to fit expected costs for the proposed project. Funds may be used for salary/stipend and fringe of personnel (including PI, students, post-docs, project managers, technicians, participant compensation, etc.), tuition remission, equipment, travel, and/or consumables. Funding of collaborators outside of Duke will not be allowed.

**This is an internal award and does not require overhead or F&A. Applicable to School of Medicine (SOM) faculty only: SOM does not assess G&A on DST expenditures. Proposals should be written with the expectation that they will be reviewed by a Duke faculty member, but not necessarily faculty within the applicant’s area of expertise.

Applications must include the following components: Appointment information (current department, school, faculty title) Date and title of first Duke faculty appointment Five (5) keywords (will be used to identify proper reviewers). Proposals should be written with the expectation that they will be reviewed by a Duke faculty member, but not necessarily faculty within the applicant’s area of expertise.

PIs are encouraged to minimize the use of domain-specific jargon to convey key concepts and ideas. Applications must include the following components: Appointment information (current department, school, faculty title) Date and title of first Duke faculty appointment Five (5) keywords (will be used to identify proper reviewers).

Up to two (2) pages describing: Impact Statement, including an explanation as to why a shift in the faculty member’s research is desired at this stage in their career why this project would be difficult to fund from other sources; and a plan to make substantial progress toward their aims within the one-year term. Paper size should be 8 ½" x 11", at least one-half inch margins (1/2") – top, bottom, left, and right for all pages.

The font size should be at least 11 pt. The fonts generally recommend are: Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, or Palatino Linotype A short CV/ Biosketch of up to five (5) pages – should clearly include the date of the first tenure track faculty appointment and include all current sources of research/scholarship support. Budget & Budget Justification A one-page document that includes both the budget and budget justification.

Applications will be reviewed by fellow Duke faculty members. Select applications will be reviewed by a committee of senior academic leaders. In both cases, faculty reviewers and members of the internal committee will not necessarily be from the applicant’s area of expertise and the proposal should be written for a general scientific audience.

The applications will be judged on: Responsiveness to the RFA. The proposal should represent a new direction or new project for the faculty member. Creativity of the proposal.

Potential impact of the proposal on the faculty member’s discipline. At the end of the one-year award period, recipients will be required to submit an End of Year report which should include: project status, what has been accomplished, problems encountered, any changes made to project objectives, project expenditures.

Additional, annual queries to award recipient will be made to ascertain whether any external funding, papers, books, etc. have derived from this award. A No Cost Extension (NCE) can be requested. NCEs are granted at the discretion of the Duke Office for Research & Innovation.

NCE requests should be accompanied by a status report detailing: project status, what has been accomplished, problems encountered, any changes made to project objectives, and an outline of how funds will be spent during the NCE period.

RFP Released March 2, 2026 RFP Deadline for Submission April 3, 2026 Anticipated Grant Notification September 15, 2026 Funds Made Available October 30, 2026 Funds To Be Expended By November 1, 2027 Submissions will close on April 3, 2026, at 11:59 PM. A step-by-step user’s guide for applying via the MyResearchProposal software is available here.

Access Code for the award is: ‘SPARK’ For any questions concerning MyResearchProposal passwords or system issues, please contact: myresearchproposal@duke. edu For all other questions, please contact vpri@duke. edu .

Who can apply? Full-time Duke Tenure Track Assistant Professors who have been at Duke for a minimum of three (3) years and Associate Professors who have been promoted within the last five (5) years. Only main campus, SOM, and SON faculty are eligible to apply.

Duke-NUS and Duke-Kunshan faculty are not eligible. Are proposal formatting guidelines required? The two-page proposal maximum does not include references.

The budget, CV, and two-page proposal must be formatted as noted in the RFP. You may include videos and hyperlinks in the proposal. Does parental leave count against me when calculating my years of eligibility as an associate professor with tenure?

No, parental leave would not count against you. If I was an associate professor at another institution, am I still eligible to apply at Duke? If you have undergone a tenure review at Duke, we will use that date as the starting point of the 5-year timeline.

I am a faculty member in a department that does not have tenure track appointments. Am I eligible to apply? Faculty within the School of Medicine, and/or other centers or units who do not have tenure-track positions, but have at least 75% effort committed to research are eligible.

Can I list a co-PI/co-I on my SPARK application? If the applicant is able to demonstrate that the proposal would benefit from the specific expertise of another Duke faculty member, they may list that faculty member as a co-I. Their role, and willingness to serve as a co-I may be indicated by a letter of support.

If the faculty member is approaching the project with an equal distribution of work (Co-PI) the team should consider the DST LAUNCH opportunity. Will this award require us to enter an SPS record to support the submission? This is an internal award and will not require an SPS record to support the submission.

Should the total budget include overhead (indirects)? No, indirects/overhad/ (G&A) should not be included in the total budget. The budget should include all direct costs necessary for the completing the aims of proposal.

Do PIs have to have measurable effort on the grant (at least 1%)? Or can they be listed with no effort? Although this program does not have a faculty effort requirement, applicants should follow their school's guidance around minimum effort on sponsored projects and satisfy a standard of reasonability for their Other Support documentation.

Will tuition remission be allowed in the budget? Yes, tuition remission is an allowable expense in the budget. Will review committee members be generalists or subject matter experts?

All review committee members will be in the discipline but may not be subject matter experts. What is MyResearchProposal? MyResearchProposal is a web-based tool used for streamlining the management of competitive grant application processes, nominations, and other data collection mechanisms used by CTSI, the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, and other institutes and departments across Duke.