Urban Mobility and Climate Change Research Fund

This funding will support research projects ready to begin work immediately, with demonstrated buy-in from relevant researchers and practitioners. We offer two types of awards:

• Travel grants: These grants will cover incubation funding related to preliminary research ideas, such as conducting background research or qualitative interviews, developing collaborations, and travel to research locations. Funds will be awarded as a stipend, so budgets should not include overhead or school assessment fees. The maximum amount for a single award is $8,000. The suggested period of performance is six months.  
• Research grants:  These grants will cover seed funding related to small research projects or pilots, such as travel, materials, data purchase, and research assistant time. The suggested period of performance is twelve months. The maximum amount for a single award is $50,000 in direct costs, but the average grant size is expected to be around $25,000. Smaller grants with demonstrated value for money will be more competitive. Budgets may include costs at Harvard and funding for external collaborator organizations, but funds will be transferred within Harvard and administered by the affiliate’s local finance unit. Proposals submitted from outside the Harvard Kennedy School should budget for their school’s assessment fee (in addition to direct costs). Funds may not be used to cover tuition, faculty salaries, or stipends. Indirect costs are capped at 20%. 

Applicants must consult with their local finance units on budget development.

Harvard affiliates from all schools and departments, including faculty, postdocs, and PhD students, are eligible to apply to the UMCC Research Fund. Master's students are eligible to apply for travel grants. Projects may include external collaborators, but funds will be transferred within Harvard and administered by the affiliate’s local finance unit. Preference will be given to proposals that include strong collaborations with policy or practitioner counterparts or collaborations across diverse academic fields. Eligible applicants may submit one application per round. 

Researchers should submit their proposals through this submission form. Applications will not be accepted via email. This application template is available to help teams develop their proposals prior to submission. Please feel free to reach out to UrbanMobility@hks.harvard.edu with any questions, including questions on project suitability. The application will include the following materials:

• Applicant information
• Application type (travel or research)
• Two-page PDF CV or link to website with CV info for all PI, Co-PIs, and Advisors
• Project summary (max 150 words)
• Policy problem & motivation (max 300 words)
• Project contributions (max 250 words for travel; 500 words for research)
• Research methodology & design (max 300 words for travel; 1,000 words for research)
• Project viability & risks (for research proposals only; max 300 words)
• Project timeline (max 200 words for travel; 300 words for research)
• Human subjects & research compliance (including an IRB approval letter if available)
• Detailed Budget (template)
• Budget Justification
• Letter of support from applicant’s local finance office (template)
• Letters of support from any policy partners/local collaborators (optional)

Proposals are reviewed and scored by the UMCC Research Fund Review Board, which is composed of researchers from diverse fields. While we will make efforts to ensure that each proposal is reviewed by at least one reviewer from a similar field, we encourage applicants to write proposals that are accessible to a general scholarly audience. All board members submitting a proposal in the current funding round, either as a primary applicant, project co-PI, or advisor, must recuse themselves from this review. Based on the scores and referee comments, the review board votes on the application status.

In addition to prioritizing incubation and/or seed funding, related to preliminary research ideas, the below criteria should serve as guiding principles for research proposals.  

Academic Contribution: Does the proposed study have the potential to make a significant contribution toward advancing knowledge in the field and the existing body of research? Does it seek to answer new questions or introduce novel methods, measures, or interventions? Does it apply methods from different fields to novel contexts?

Topical Relevance: Does the study relate to key themes in urban mobility and climate change, particularly 1) improve and decarbonize urban transport, 2) measure and reduce co-pollutants, or 3) understand and adapt to climate shocks? Is it relevant to developing megacities in low- and middle-income countries?

Policy Relevance: Is there potential for the proposed work to be scaled up by policymakers, practitioner counterparts, or others? Are the results likely to inform policy in the study context or in other similar contexts?

Technical Design: How well does the research design proposed and/or to be developed appropriately answer the questions outlined in the proposal?

Project Viability: What is the viability of the proposed work and anticipated risks associated with carrying it out? Are there appropriate mitigating measures in place?

As a condition of accepting funding, each grant recipient will be required to submit a 750-1,000-word written reflection that highlights the problem your research is trying to solve and how your team is approaching it. The article should be accompanied by 3-4 high-resolution photos or graphs of your work and research team, if available. The article will be published on the CID and Salata websites (e.g., CID Voices and Salata Urban Mobility and Climate Change Research Cluster) and amplified on CID’s and Salata’s social media channels, at the discretion of their communications teams. This deliverable will be due at the end of the project period. Awardees will also submit a final technical and financial report due 60 days after the project’s completion.

Funding will be awarded with the presumption that money will be used only for academic/research costs (e.g., RA time, survey collection, participant incentives, etc.). If the budget includes funding to cover activities such as, but not limited to, focus groups, product design, marketing, or any other direct costs that would normally be funded by a business as part of its day-to-day operations, the application should explain why the implementer/firm cannot bear these costs in the budget narrative. In general, activities that would occur anyway, even in the absence of the research, should not be funded, while those that should typically be covered by the firm but would not have been implemented without research should be justified.

PIs should ensure a written agreement that safeguards the PI’s intellectual freedom to publish. This includes specifying who owns the data and ensuring that any third party’s right of review is limited to preventing the disclosure of confidential information.

A Data Use Agreement should be in place when using administrative data provided by the company. Although it is not a requirement that the partner be named in the paper, the decision on whether to do so should be made in writing and ex ante, so that it does not depend on the results.