Research Funding & Grants

The Research Innovation Seed for Commercialization (RISC) Fund is an internal funding program with the goal of advancing research along the commercialization pathway. It is in an early-stage grant mechanism that is intended to support projects that will eventually lead to a commercial outcome.

The RISC Fund encourages collaborative research projects, with the requirement that at least one of the principal investigators is a College of Medicine faculty member. The Fund welcomes projects that are at an early stage of discovery and development, however, the Fund is not intended to be a basic discovery project or bridge funding for an academic project. To advance the commercial potential of projects, the RISC Fund will facilitate the progression of research in its early stages to its next inflection point; making the innovation more marketable by providing funds to support research that will strengthen the foundation of the innovation.

Activities that fall within the scope of this Fund include research to further develop/de-risk an invention, establish proof of concept/validation, expand the breadth of the original experiments, enable prototype development, and provide for pre-clinical or clinical development, including regulatory consulting. It is expected that applicants will actively work to advance their technology to commercialization.

Funding will consist of a maximum of four awards per fiscal year with awardees receiving up to a total of $50,000 per year. Applicants are encouraged to request only the amount of funding they require to accomplish their specific goal(s).

For more information, please contact Paco Herson, Associate Dean for Research Innovation, or Oliver Couture, Director of Innovation, Partnerships & Translational Research in the College of Medicine. 

The OSU College of Medicine established the Dean's Bridge Funding Program as a way to support independent research by providing short-term bridge funding to faculty with favorably reviewed, but unfunded, federal research projects. The goal of this program is to enhance the likelihood of faculty being successful in securing extramural funding, and more specifically, funding with full indirect costs.

Applications for the Dean's Bridge Funding Program have set criteria which was determined by the College. The application criteria includes faculty rank, protected time, demonstration of need, productivity of research program, and a competitive federal application. 

Awards are determined by an institutional review panel comprised of both clinical and basic science investigators in the OSU College of Medicine who are currently funded and have grant review experience at a national level. The major criterion is the realistic expectation of return on investment to the College of Medicine in the form of future research funding. Awards are limited to $50,000 and are intended primarily to support laboratory personnel, supplies and other required expenses.

There are two application deadlines per year: January 31 and July 31. Email all applications to the College of Medicine Office of Research  at comor@osumc.edu by 5 p.m. on the designated deadline. If the deadline falls on a weekend, applications will be accepted the next business day, no later than 5 p.m.

For more information, please contact comor@osumc.edu in Ohio State's College of Medicine Office of Research with questions.

To enable development of novel research ideas, the COM offers the Dean's Discovery Grants Program (Discovery and NCH Pilot Guidelines). The goal of this program is to provide sufficient research support to generate pilot data for extramural grant application(s), specifically funding with full indirect costs, within one year of the award. This program will enable successful scientists with a track record of productivity to broaden their research portfolio or generate new resources, striking out in new directions beyond current research, in areas relevant to the science community at the COM and of interest to extramural funding agencies.

Funding is limited to a one-time support for the project identified in the application and are also limited to $25,000 for single investigator projects and $50,000 for larger team projects. This program is intended primarily to support current laboratory personnel, supplies and other required expenses (e.g., cores).

There are two application deadlines per year: January 31 and July 31. Email all applications to the College of Medicine Office of Research  at comor@osumc.edu by 5 p.m. on the designated deadline. If the deadline falls on a weekend, applications will be accepted the next business day, no later than 5 p.m.

For more information, please contact comor@osumc.edu in Ohio State's College of Medicine Office of Research with questions.

A pilot program supported by Nationwide Children’s Hospital & Research Institute and the College of Medicine Office of Research to facilitate and encourage collaborative pilot projects between faculty at the two campuses. These pilots may include new partnerships, or partnerships that have already been established between the faculty of the two campuses.

Funding is limited to a one-time support for the project identified in the application. Awards are limited to $25,000 for single investigator projects and $50,000 for larger team projects. This program is intended primarily to support current laboratory personnel, supplies and other required expenses (e.g., cores).

There are two application deadlines per year: January 31 and July 31. Email all applications to the College of Medicine Office of Research  at comor@osumc.edu by 5 p.m. on the designated deadline. If the deadline falls on a weekend, applications will be accepted the next business day, no later than 5 p.m.

For more information, please contact comor@osumc.edu in Ohio State's College of Medicine Office of Research with questions.