Research Seed Grant Program
About the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI)
From its founding, America has developed an array of institutions to preserve and advance our nation’s liberty and prosperity. Yet today, many citizens have lost confidence in those institutions, challenging their legitimacy and compromising their missions. In an objective, nonpartisan spirit, the Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) draws on the Hoover Institution’s scholarship, government experience, and convening power to study the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, analyze how they are operating in practice, and consider policy recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
Grant Program Description and Criteria
The Center for Revitalizing American Institutions (RAI) is accepting proposals for funding (up to $25,000) to support innovative research projects directly related to its mission that address key questions in the areas of government institutions, organizations and democratic practice, and democratic citizenship. Examples of such questions might include (but are certainly not limited to):
- How well is Congress (or another institution) representing voters’ preferences and meeting voters’ expectations?
- How are bureaucracies employing artificial intelligence (AI)–related technologies to improve organizations’ effectiveness, and what are the opportunities and risks this development presents to democratic governance?
- How have state-level campaign finance reforms affected state government policymaking and candidate recruitment?
- How do local electoral procedures and practices (e.g., the timing of elections, whether elections are nonpartisan, or the overlapping nature of local electoral boundaries) influence fiscal policies such as pensions and targeted benefits?
- How is the Supreme Court’s Chevron reversal affecting lawmaking and bureaucratic policymaking?
- Why has trust and confidence in higher education declined, and how can institutions of higher learning restore this trust and confidence?
- How have patterns of youth voting in the United States changed over time, and what factors help explain these developments?
Applications will be assessed using the following criteria:
- Quality of Research. The proposed research plan uses state-of-the art methods (whether quantitative or qualitative) for the research question and adheres to practices that facilitate transparency and replicability, where appropriate.
- Mission Alignment. The effort is aligned with the missions of RAI and the Hoover Institution, including RAI’s efforts to understand the reasons behind the crisis in trust facing American institutions, to analyze how they are operating in practice, and identify evidence-based recommendations to rebuild trust and increase their effectiveness.
- Innovation. The effort represents innovative data, a novel approach, or an investigation of a new question and therefore has the potential to advance and reshape scholarship in the area.
- Cost Effectiveness. The proposed research is conducted in a cost-effective way, and there is evidence that the funding will move the research forward, which may involve leveraging resources from multiple sources or using this funding as a seed grant to establish proof of concept.
- Implementation. The proposal clearly identifies how the research can be carried out successfully.
Eligibility and Application Requirements
This seed grant program is open to Hoover Institution fellows, Stanford University Academic Council faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and doctoral students. Stanford postdocs and doctoral students must apply with sponsorship from an Academic Council faculty member or Hoover fellow. Applicants may receive support for only one project at a time and may submit only one proposal per cycle. Individuals with an active Seed Grant project (e.g., have not yet submitted findings) are not eligible to apply. While applicants who have received funding from RAI in the past are eligible, Seed Grants are intended to support new efforts rather than continue existing projects. RAI is also eager to support efforts from across the university and does not anticipate having sufficient funding available for projects and recipients it has supported within the past two years.
An application, CV, and proposal are required to be submitted for consideration. Additionally, graduate students must ask their advisors to submit a letter of recommendation by submitting the letter via email to rai-hoover@stanford.edu. Your proposal must include the following elements:
- Abstract
- Description of research (5 pages maximum, not including references), including
- Objectives
- Methodology
- Alignment with Selection Criteria
- Timeline
- References
- Budget, with details for each expense
- Note that proposals need not total $25,000 and that the necessity of each expense will be a part of the review process
What We Won't Fund
- Principal investigator (PI) salaries or supplements (this does not preclude funding to employ research assistants)
- Conference travel that does not relate directly to the execution of the research
Deadline
Completed applications and all required materials must be submitted by January 23, 2026. We anticipate notifying applicants of the steering committee’s decisions by the beginning of the spring quarter.
Post-Award Expectations
All grantees are expected to:
- Provide a brief annual progress report (typically in September) while research is being conducted, and a summative report at the conclusion of the project
- Acknowledge RAI support in publications and presentations generated with support from the seed grant
- Submit publications and presentations to sgradel@stanford.edu for public dissemination on the RAI website
Additional Information
Only complete proposals will be reviewed. Applicants may receive funding for one project per academic year, and awards may be granted in full or in part.
Awardees will be required to create a new, distinct expendable gift PTA housed in their home department. RAI will process a transfer of funds to that PTA, and all project related financial transactions will be administered by the awardee's department.
Examples of previously funded projects
