FAPESP and Office of International Affairs Joint Seed Funding

The São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) and the Office of International Affairs (OIA) at The Ohio State University announce a new call for joint research projects. The aim is to promote and strengthen collaboration between researchers affiliated with higher education and research institutions in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and researchers working at Ohio State. As part of Ohio State’s land grant mission and strategic vision, the Office of International Affairs supports innovative scholarship and encourages collaborations between Ohio State researchers and their local and international partners.

Research themes

The present call invites research proposals in any discipline, but especially in areas related to:

• Technology and society: ethics, governance, law
• Data science and artificial intelligence
• Agriculture and the environment
• New forms and sources of energy
• New directions in the humanities
• Cancer and immunology

Funding and duration

FAPESP and the Ohio State will fund jointly up to $20,000 per project with a duration of two (2) years. FAPESP will fund up costs of the research team based in the State of São Paulo (up to $10,000) and Ohio State will fund the US-based research team (up to $10,000). A total of five (5) proposals will be funded for this call.

Eligibility criteria 

Each proposal must include one Principal Investigator (PI) from the State of São Paulo and one from Ohio State. Applicants should submit a well-structured research proposal that highlights the unique contributions of both partners and demonstrates the complementary strengths of the teams. 

The following eligibility criteria apply:

• Proposals must be written in English
• Proposals must have the same duration on both sides, i.e. 24 months (two years) starting in November 1, 2025
• Each PI is allowed to submit only one proposal, under penalty of exclusion
• Only joint applications that have at least one Ohio State and one researcher from a higher education and research institution in the state of São Paulo, Brazil will be considered

FAPESP

• The PI eligible for FAPESP’s funding under the scope of this call must be employees of a higher education and research institutions in the state of São Paulo and must meet the FAPESP eligibility requirements for the Auxílio à Pesquisa Regular
• Applicants can already have one Regular (APR) or Thematic Grant (TEM) and one in collaboration
• Proposals must meet the rules and instructions of Regular Research Grant, with the exceptions of funding and duration (item 3)

Ohio State

• Tenure-track and tenured faculty members at Ohio State are eligible to apply. Applications that can show evidence of further seed funding under their colleges will be given priority. Moreover, early- and mid-career scholars are particularly encouraged to apply
• The proposal should include a budget narrative that complies with Ohio State, college, and department requirements is needed. Please note that equipment expenses should be limited to those that are not available in the applicants’ home institutions
• Final Report: Recipients are expected to submit a final report (1,000 words) following the end of the funding period. The report should include information about project outcomes, future plans and an explanation of how funds were spent

Funding principles

Researchers should ensure that all expenses are calculated and covered in line with the rules and regulations in force from FAPESP and Ohio State.

Funds both from FAPESP and Ohio State will cover:

• Mobility: travel, daily allowances and insurance costs
• Modest direct research costs: consumables, third-party services, low-cost equipment and access to facilities to support activities and extra expenditures for visitors
• Workshops

FAPESP

• FAPESP will provide the selected proposals with funds for travel (economy class air tickets - www.fapesp.br/5835, item 3.4.1), travel insurance (www.fapesp.br/2921), and daily allowances (www.fapesp.br/16590) for researchers from the state of São Paulo that will visit Ohio State:
  • Daily allowances are guided by Portaria PR nº 35/2020 (www.fapesp.br/14018). When the period of the stay abroad is less than 30 days, a maximum of 10 per diems can be used for researchers. The monthly rate can only be applied if the stay abroad is for a period equal to or greater than 30 days, according to FAPESP´s current tables for researchers (www.fapesp.br/15942)
  • The grant can only be used for the exchange of researchers, visits for research planning, international workshops, and initial activities of data collection, always aiming to continue research collaboration and its consolidation
  • The FAPESP grants will not be eligible for research overhead, fringe benefits and fellowships - associated submission
  • Researchers must abide to the rules of their home institutions and FAPESP´s pertaining long term absent periods from their activities and ongoing grants
  • Requests for budget alterations will not be analyzed
  • The grantee must verify with the competent consulate the need to obtain specific visa, as well as to the related costs

Submission

Proposals, in English, and prepared by both research teams must contain a clear description of the planned collaboration (distribution of work and methods of implementation) and the added value to be expected from the collaboration. 

Proposals must include the following sections:

• Abstract (50 words)
• Project Description and Timeline (up to 1,000 words)
  • Projects’ expected outcomes, collaborative aspects, and innovative features. Include a timeline for the project’s management
• Dissemination and Future Funding (up to 200 words)
  • Plan for the dissemination of the research outcomes and potential for future funding
• Budget Summary
  • Summarized budget table itemizing the funds requested from FAPESP and the Ohio State (template available at the end of this document)

The PI from the state of São Paulo must include, in the submission, all documents requested in the SAGe system (see Annex below for further instructions).

Application 

Proposals must be received by both FAPESP and Ohio State. Proposals which have not been submitted in both countries will not be considered for review and will not be considered for funding. Both FAPESP and the Ohio State will not be held responsible for incomplete registrations due to IT technical problems, communication failures, communication line congestion or other factors hindering data transfer. Conditional, late or submissions via postal mail, fax or email will not be accepted. It will not be possible to make registrations after the deadline specified in this call for proposals.

Proposals must be submitted by August 25, 2025 to FAPESP by the PI from the State of São Paulo and to Ohio State by the PI from the U.S. By submitting the proposal, the proponents agree to the rules and conditions established in this call for proposals and in the applicable legislation, and cannot claim ignorance or disagreement.

FAPESP

The PI from the state of São Paulo can submit only one proposal in this call.

The proposal must be submitted exclusively through the SAGe system. The pathways is: Nova Proposta Inicial > + Outras Linhas de Fomento > + Acordos de Cooperação > + University of Ohio > + OSU - Projeto de Pesquisa - Regular > + Chamada de Propostas (2025).

It is necessary that the PI from the Ohio State is registered in the SAGe system and confirm their participation in the proposal (please see the annex at the end of the call for more information). It is strongly recommended to complete and submit the proposal well in advance.

FAPESP's communication lines are available for assistance between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. from Monday to Friday.

Ohio State

The PI from Ohio State must submit the documents itemized in the Submission section through this link: https://go.osu.edu/fapesp25

Analysis and selection

Proposals that do not comply with the terms of this call will not qualify for analysis;

Each party will select the proposals according to its own procedures and only the proposals selected by both parties will be funded. A joint committee will finalize the selection process.

Beyond regular review procedures by each party, the evaluation criteria include:

• Scientific quality, feasibility and innovativeness of the research plan
• Competence and expertise of the applicants from both countries
• Added value generated by US-Brazilian research collaboration
• A clear description of the responsibilities that will be carried out by research partners
• The potential for outcomes such as joint publications, conference presentations, new coursework and acquiring external funding in the future
• The project’s potential to enhance future collaborations between the researchers’ home institution
• The project’s potential for innovation in its own field and its broad impact

The following criteria may be utilized to resolve ties:

• Proposals from researchers who have completed their PhDs within the last 10 years will be prioritized (periods of parental leave being excluded from the calculation of this time);
  • FAPESP and Ohio State will seek for distribution of proposals within the 5 research themes.

Considering the final results announced under this call for proposals, FAPESP and Ohio State will not accept reconsideration requests.

Intellectual property

To execute the research project, an agreement must be established between the partners, covering at least the following information:

• where and for how long the data generated during the project will be stored, how it will be protected, and who will have access to it
• indication of the repositories where the data generated will be stored, including both those generated exclusively by Brazilian partners and those generated exclusively by foreign partners, with cross-references in both cases
• the rules that will apply to the co-authorship of publications resulting from the collaborative research project
• intellectual property issues: if the project results or the final report itself have commercial value or may lead to the development of a product or method involving the establishment of a patent, the exchange of information and the ownership of intellectual property rights will be governed by Brazilian Law No. 9,279 of May 14, 1996, Decree No. 9,283 of February 7, 2018, and FAPESP's Intellectual Property Policy. In the case of partnerships with foreign entities or institutions, the respective country's laws regarding the matter should also be observed

The presentation of this document is not mandatory for signing the grant contract by the Brazilian PI; however, FAPESP can request its presentation at any time.

Matchmaking

Foreign researchers interested in finding partners in the state of São Paulo can use the Virtual Library of FAPESP. It is possible to search for information on grants and scholarships awarded by FAPESP, including abstracts, as well as the names of participating researchers and their institutions. Ohio State researchers who need information about potential collaborators within the State of São Paulo should contact Jane Aparecido (aparecido.1@osu.edu), director of Ohio State’s Brazil Gateway in São Paulo. 

Contact 

All questions related to this call for proposals must be directed to:

• FAPESP - Luana Silva Soares
• The Ohio State University - Rita Koryan

Instructions for SAGe

1. It is necessary that the PI  from the state of São Paulo and from Ohio State are registered in the SAGe system and confirm their participation in the proposal

• Researchers who do not have a SAGe registration must initially do so by accessing the SAGe page, clicking No registration? and filling in the requested data. It is not enough to just register as a user. After accessing the system it is necessary to complete the mandatory registration data, marked with “*”
• Researchers already registered must login to SAGe with their usual identification and password to access the system

2. When submitting the proposal, pay attention to the mandatory completion of all items marked with *. It is necessary to submit the proposal at the end. A saved proposal does not mean that it is a submitted proposal
3. Use the Manuals section on the SAGe home page if there are any questions. The system also provides an English version with manuals for user registration and confirmation of participation in proposals
4. The PI from Ohio State must be included in the team and must later confirm its participation through the option “Proposals in which I participate”, in the “Proposals” item in the SAGe main menu

Note: It is strongly recommended to complete and submit the proposal in the system well in advance and that the researcher periodically checks the pending proposals using the "Validate" option in SAGe. This can be done repeatedly as the proposal is constructed, allowing all necessary arrangements for submission to be made on time. When selecting the “Validate” option, the SAGe system will present the pending issues that impede the submission of the proposal considering the items that were inserted. In there are questions about the use of SAGe, in addition to the manuals, FAPESP provides assistance through the Converse with FAPESP service.