After several successful editions, we are excited to announce another call to receive inspiring and innovative proposals. We will be able to accreditate proposals with up to 10.000 Euros. The ASI seed money program is meant for enthusiastic and ambitious VU researchers who are willing to go the extra mile to breach the invisible walls between disciplines. We believe that disciplines need to combine forces as together we can come up with promising ideas to tackle the climate challenges we face today.
The Amsterdam Sustainability Institute wants to facilitate research that revolves around sustainability issues, ranging from improving our understanding of the natural causes of climate change to learning how to change people’s behaviour. Topics from recent winning projects focus on promoting healthy vegan eating at VU, transformative tools for social entrepreneurship, bio-cultural analysis of shifting baselines, engaging climate scientists for citizen dialogues and visions of VU’s green campus.
Keen on strengthening the connectedness between VU faculties, other universities and beyond, previous winners have published academic papers on peer-reviewed journals, produced technical reports and conference papers and extended their projects through external collaborations. Under VU Amsterdam's profile theme "Science for Sustainability", the programme has enabled 29 projects that benefitted more than 100 researchers.
The 2024 seed money call closes Friday 1 December at midnight. Please send your ideas via this form which includes detailed requirements for the proposal. You are asked to provide the objectives and outcome of the project as well as a project description of 0.5 to 2 pages. To prepare your application, you can consult this document which includes additional information.
We will accept proposals conforming to the following requirements:
- Applicants should belong to a minimum of two different faculties at VU. You need to indicate how everyone will contribute. If you cannot, please explain why. Please also indicate to which ASI research cluster you are affiliated or could be affiliated. If you think you do not belong to any cluster, explain why.
- The leading applicant has to be a postdoc or assistant professor (<5 years after PhD defence), other members can be PhDs or more senior.
- In addition to the two main VU applicants, service departments from the VU (FCO, restaurant, library, etc.), and societal partners outside VU are welcome to join. The money cannot be spent by partners outside VU.