Small-value, short-duration funding awarded to develop a novel research idea to the point where it can compete for larger external grants, typically provided by institutions, learned societies, or pilot-grant programmes.

ByCASRAI Editorial Board

· Last updated 21 May 2026

Examples

Worked examples

Is an instance
A new lecturer receives 25,000 GBP in seed funding to generate preliminary data for an ERC Starting Grant application.
Is an instance
A medical school operates a 500,000 GBP annual seed pool, distributed in awards of up to 30,000 GBP.

Counter-examples

Looks similar, but isn't

Not an instance
A full programme grant of 1.5 million GBP is not seed funding.
Not an instance
Renewal funding of an established programme is not seed.

Editorial commentary

Seed funding (often 5,000 to 50,000 GBP / USD) is designed to generate preliminary data, hire a starter postdoc or research assistant, or pilot a methodology. Many institutional seed schemes have explicit return-on-investment metrics measured as the ratio of external grants subsequently won to seed invested. Foundations such as the Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society, and the Wellcome ISSF use seed mechanisms. Seed funding is closely related to but distinct from pump-priming and catalyst grants.

References

Royal Society Research Grants scheme; Wellcome Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF).

Also known as

Pilot funding · Pilot grant · Starter funding

Machine-readable encodings

Use in your systems

JATS XML <role> element

xml

<role vocab="credit"
      vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
      vocab-term="Seed funding"
      vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/seed-funding" />

Schema.org DefinedTerm (JSON-LD)

json

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "DefinedTerm",
  "@id": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/seed-funding",
  "name": "Seed funding",
  "identifier": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/seed-funding",
  "description": "Small-value, short-duration funding awarded to develop a novel research idea to the point where it can compete for larger external grants, typically provided by institutions, learned societies, or pilot-grant programmes.",
  "inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/funding-finance#set",
  "url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/seed-funding",
  "sameAs": [
    "Pilot funding",
    "Pilot grant",
    "Starter funding"
  ],
  "license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "publisher": {
    "@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
  },
  "dateModified": "2026-05-21T02:22:58",
  "inLanguage": "en"
}

Referenced across the research world

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