STAIR Grant Home Page

*****Application deadline extended to March 12! New funding partners added; see additional information below****

Managed by Venture Catalyst and funded by the UC Davis Office of Research, the Science Translation and Innovative Research (STAIR[1]) Grant program provides funding to UC Davis researchers to support translational science and innovative research, enabling demonstration of early proof-of-concept and commercial potential or feasibility for technologies being developed with the intent of commercial translation. Key features provided by the STAIR program are 1) feedback to all applicants and 2) an active mentoring component by industry professionals for finalists and awardees. View the 2016-17 STAIR Grant Executive Summary for a description of the program and the selection process.

In its first four years, the STAIR Grant program awarded a total of over $890,000 to 19 awardees (see list of previous winners here). Now in its fifth year, the program will make available up to $50,000 per successful proposal, with a total of $250,000 available for program year FY 2017-18.

Announcement: Venture Catalyst has entered into agreements with several partners to expand potential funding available to particular technologies through the STAIR and DIAL Grant programs. Partners include Technology Acceleration Partners (TechAccel, LLC–focused on agriculture and animal health); Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV–focused on breakthroughs in energy technology); MedImmune, the global biologics research and development arm of AstraZeneca; UC Davis Innovation Institute for Food and Health (IIFH–focused on enabling safe, sustainable, and secure nutrition for all; see the IIFH support for STAIR Grant announcement here); and UC Davis College of Biological Sciences (providing additional funding to CBS researchers receiving a STAIR Grant award). More details about the partners and the specific technology areas can be found here.

If you are a UC Davis researcher and are interested in applying, please download the STAIR program RFP, application form, invitation to self-identify (demographic information), and detailed application instructions here. Note: for a STAIR Grant application to be considered, the technology that is the basis for the proposal must have an approved Record of Invention (ROI) on file with InnovationAccess. For more information on how to submit an ROI, please visit the InnovationAccess ROI web page here.

Venture Catalyst will be hosting information sessions during late January and the month of February. Please check the Information Session page for details.

Applications will be accepted beginning Tuesday, January 24, 2018 at the Research Funding Opportunities website (Kerberos login required) of the Office of Research at https://researchfunding.ucdavis.edu/. The announcement is posted under the “UC Davis Administered Programs” (select this option on the right-hand side of the landing page). Applicants must upload all four required documents listed below to the Research Funding Opportunities website in pdf format:

STAIR Grant application form
Research Plan (3 pages maximum; a fourth page may additionally be utilized solely for supporting figures, images, or charts)
Budget, Milestones and Timelines document (up to 2 pages)
Biographical sketches for all key personnel (two pages or less preferred)

NEW DEADLINE: Monday, March 12, 2018, at 5pm.

If you are a UC Davis researcher interested in being added to the STAIR Grant email list, or have any questions about the program, please send an email to stairgrant@ucdavis.edu.

Go to DIAL Grant Program

[1] STAIR is a trademark of The Regents of the University of California.