Sponsor

The grants are currently supported by: John Collison, Patrick Collison, the Crankstart Foundation, Kim and Scott Farquhar, Paul Graham, Reid Hoffman, Fiona McKean and Tobias Lütke, Yuri and Julia Milner, and Chris and Crystal Sacca. AWS has contributed compute credits.

Program

Fast Grants [1] for COVID-19 Science

For More Information

Program details, eligibility criteria and application instructions available on Fast Grants [1].  

Description

If you are a scientist at an academic institution currently working on a COVID-19 related project and in need of funding, you are invited to apply for a Fast Grant.

Eligibility

You must be:

• A PI at an academic institution;
• Already working on a project that could help with the COVID-19 pandemic within the next six months;
• In need of additional funding to complete the project.

Researchers outside the US are eligible for funding.

Why the six month constraint?

Most existing funding bodies focus on supporting longer-term work. Given COVID-19's human costs, speed is of paramount importance.

Funding Availability

Fast Grants are $10k to $500k and decisions are made in under 48 hours.

Indirect Costs

10%

Special Notes

Who will make grant decisions?

A panel of biomedical scientists will make funding recommendations to Emergent Ventures [2].

What can a Fast Grant be used for?

A Fast Grant must be used solely to expedite COVID-19-related science. Beyond that, the grant recipient has complete discretion over how it is spent.

What criteria will panelists use?

Preferred projects are those that are inexpensive (so that our fund dollars go further) and that will yield results quickly (during COVID-19, days matter).

What conditions apply?

• You must use the grant to work on COVID-19-related science.
• For six months, you must submit monthly updates, summarizing your progress. These updates can be as simple as a single-paragraph email.
• You must upload all manuscripts reporting work supported by the grant to a preprint server such as bioRxiv [3] or arXiv [4] upon submission to a peer-reviewed journal.
• In line with Gates Foundation policy [5], a maximum of 10% in overhead costs will be paid to the university.

Please refer to the Office of Research COVID 19 web-page [6] for directives related to research activities at the University of Guelph.

How to Apply

The application form [7] is available online and should take less than 30 minutes to complete. 

UPDATE: Fast Funding for COVID-19 Science​ applications are paused. ​

Due to receipt of a very large number of qualified submissions, Fast Grant applications are currently closed. They may reopen in the future.