The ILSDI Seed Funding Program aims to foster inter- and trans-disciplinary intellectual engagement around the aims of the initiative, facilitate the development and submission of large-scale multi-faculty proposals for external funding, and fund pilot or proof-of-concept projects to better position faculty groups to competitively pursue external funding.

The seed-funding program will proceed in two phases. In each phase, formal calls will invite proposals for funding. All Illinois tenure-track faculty members are eligible for leading proposal submissions. Proposals should feature cross-campus, multi-disciplinary collaborations, and address one of the following themes: (1) Advancing the scientific understanding of learning in ways that substantially inform the design of transformative learning tools and environments; (2) Designing and evaluating physical, digital, and/or hybrid learning tools and spaces of the future; and (3) Curating and analyzing big data to transform unitary platforms into adaptive personalized learning environments. Successful proposals will clearly demonstrate how funds will be used to better position the submitting group of faculty, students, and/or staff to compete for external funding.