Discovery Prize 2025
Call for Proposals
Eligibility
To apply for the Discovery Prize, an individual must be an early career faculty member who, at the time of application, has a tenure-track or non-tenure-track assistant professor level–appointment, or is no more than five years beyond tenure and promotion at the associate professor level at Stony Brook University (SBU).The proposed research project may emerge from a single discipline or may be interdisciplinary, involving multiple SBU faculty. The lead PI, however, must fit the eligibility criteria described above.
The proposed work must be basic research that is discovery-driven and creates new knowledge. Research that is primarily translational in nature (i.e., seeks to apply existing knowledge) or that has been funded in the past is not eligible.
Application
The deadline is October 4, 2024, at 11:59 PM EST.
If you meet the eligibility requirements above, you are invited to submit a concept paper that addresses the questions below.
Applications must be submitted via the Discovery Prize portal in Infoready. All documents should be combined in the following order and uploaded to the application submission portal as ONE PDF file. Please note that applications must be submitted through the InfoReady portal for consideration. Each section must start on a new page (the page limits for each are listed below).
Font size must be 11 points or larger with 1-inch margins. Smaller text in figures, graphs, diagrams and charts is acceptable as long as it is legible when the page is viewed at 100%.
- Concept Paper (2-page limit) that includes:
- Concept:
- What is your idea, and how does it revolutionize your field?
- What is the gap in knowledge or paradigm you are seeking to address?
- Approach:
- How would your research fill the gap or move knowledge forward?
- What is your experimental or novel approach for addressing this question?
- Broader Significance:
- How will your findings change our understanding not only of your field but also other sciences and/or society at large?
- Why is your research so unique that it is unlikely to be supported by funding agencies?
- Concept:
- References (no page limit) consisting of full citations including authors, year of publication, title, journal, and inclusive pages. Do not include any abstracts, summaries, or other annotations.
- List of the PI’s current and pending grant and contract support (using a standard NSF or NIH format) (no page limit)
- PI’s Biosketch/CV (2-page limit)
Applications that do not follow these guidelines will be returned without review.
Timeline (dates subject to change)
Concept Papers due: October 4, 2024
Semi-finalists notified and invited to submit full proposals: November 1, 2024
Full proposals due: December 2, 2024
Finalists notified: January 3, 2025
Oral presentations by finalists and award announcement: March 2025
Review Process
The Office of the Vice President for Research will lead the proposal review process. Review of concept papers will involve a multidisciplinary panel of senior SBU faculty with accomplished research records. Following review of concept papers, a subset (no more than five) will be invited to submit full proposals. Review of full proposals will involve both written and oral presentations (i.e., TED-style talks) to be judged by a second panel of distinguished external and SBU scientists. Names of panelists will be posted on the Discovery Prize website prior to the proposal deadline.
Additional Information/Questions
Please direct questions to the Office of Proposal Development at OPD_OVPR@stonybrook.edu