Applying for Impact Lab Start-Up Funding
Letters of interest in Impact Lab Start-Up Funding were due March 18, 2026. We will be making at least two awards of up to $500,000 over two years on a competitive basis for Harvard faculty to launch an Impact Lab or a new line of work at an existing lab. To be notified of new calls for proposals, sign up for updates.
About Impact Lab Start-Up Funding
Impact Labs conduct rigorous research aimed at tackling an urgent social problem in collaboration with government, nonprofit, or for-profit entities. Like other academic research labs, Impact Labs produce cutting-edge research to be published in top journals, but their ultimate goal is to generate solutions that can have an impact at scale and improve people’s lives. The close collaboration between scholars and practitioners both deepens the collective understanding of the problem and increases the likelihood that the solutions identified can be replicated, scaled, and sustained.
We expect this funding will appeal to a wide variety of teams at different stages in their work – both new and established lab teams.
Winning awards will:
- Be aimed at solving a compelling and clearly defined social problem;
- Have an existing strong relationship with one or more government agencies, nonprofits, or for-profit entities with which you will co-design the potential solutions and conduct the research;
- Propose a promising research design that will advance knowledge in the field;
- Represent a sustained program of research to address a social problem over multiple years (i.e., not a one-off research study); and
- Articulate a viable theory for how the research could lead to change that improves lives at the scale of the problem.
Eligibility
- Principal Investigators must be tenured, tenure-track, or full-time Professors of the Practice or Professors in Residence at Harvard. Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine faculty whose primary affiliation is with the HMS Quad (i.e., Harvard paid) are eligible for Lab Start-Up Funding. HMS and HSDM faculty with primary appointments at an HMS affiliate are not eligible, but are welcome to apply to our Impact Lab Development Fellowship or Public Service Leave.
- Faculty may apply as individuals or with colleagues at Harvard or other universities if there is clarity about the contributions and roles of each.
- Each PI can submit only one proposal at a time, but faculty can serve as co-investigators on multiple projects.
- The PI(s) have primary responsibility for the successful delivery of the project.
- The research team must already have a relationship with the external, non-academic organization(s) with which it plans to work. If you do not, you may wish to apply for our Impact Lab Development Fellowship or Public Service Leave.
This funding is for teams at all stages of maturity:
- For established teams/labs, this funding should enable a promising new direction that would not be possible with existing funding. This might involve a new aspect of the problem, a new partner, or testing a new solution or a strategy for scaling proven interventions (as long as there is also a clear research component).
For new teams/labs, this funding might provide the capital to build out a professional team to support an R&D cycle with collaborators in a non-academic organization (e.g. government, non-profits, private sector). You must already have a relationship with the external non-academic organization(s) when you apply.
Evaluation Criteria
Proposals will be evaluated on the five criteria below based on the Evaluation Criteria originally developed by Stanford Impact Labs. Some proposals will be stronger on some criteria than others. The most competitive proposals tend to have compelling social problems with a significant impact on society and describe a clear path to scale. That said, the proposals will be reviewed for their overall alignment with the criteria.
- Scale, Depth, and Urgency of the Problem
- Scientific Contribution
- Potential for Impact at Scale
- Strength of Partnership
- Leadership and Team
See our Evaluation Criteria for how proposals will be evaluated.
Application Process
Letters of interest were due March 18, 2026. By the end of May, the most promising applicants will be invited to submit full proposals in July. We will provide feedback to those invited to submit full proposals to help them maximize their chances of being funded. We expect that about half of those submitting full proposals will receive funding.
- Stage 1: Letters of Interest (3-page maximum). These Letters of Interest will be evaluated by external practitioners and Harvard Impact Labs faculty and staff.
- Stage 2: Full Application. Selected applicants will be invited to submit a full application and budget. Instructions for the full application will be made available once selected. Full applications will be reviewed by at least one academic expert and one practitioner expert with expertise in the relevant areas of research and practice. Applications may also be reviewed by a member of a community directly affected by the problem being addressed.
- Stage 3: Written Responses and Optional Revisions. After reviewing the full application and external reviews, the strongest proposals will advance and be asked to respond to written questions. They will also have the option of revising and resubmitting their application.
- Stage 4: Meetings with Research Team & Partner(s). After receiving the written responses, we will host a virtual team meeting with the PIs and representatives from applicants’ partner organizations.
- Stage 5: Final Decision and Award Agreements. Harvard Impact Labs will notify applicants of a final funding decision. Recipients sign and return an award agreement and attend a kick-off meeting with the research team and Harvard Impact Labs.
Application Timeline
- February 2026: information sessions on Zoom
- March 18: Letters of interest due
- By end of May: Selected applicants invited to submit full application
- July 24: Full applications due
- October: Selected applicants receive written feedback, submit optional revisions, and attend a meeting with their partners and the Harvard Impact Labs team
- November: Applicants notified of final decision
Budget
Applicants may request up to $500,000 over two years. Applicants are encouraged to propose a budget and timeframe appropriate to their aims. Budgets will be evaluated based on the expected outcomes of the proposed work, meaning that larger budgets will be subject to greater scrutiny and higher expectations. Some applications may be funded below the maximum amount or amount requested.
The most compelling budgets will invest in partner needs, implementation strategies, research and administrative support, and data collection or analysis. If the work of the partner(s) is not funded in the budget request, please specify how the work will be funded.
We expect to see PI time as an in-kind contribution unless your school requires PIs to raise their own academic-year salaries and account for their time through grants. Our funding cannot be used for PI summer salaries.
The Letter of Interest includes a high-level summary of how funds will be spent, up to $500,000 in direct costs (Harvard Impact Labs will cover the gift assessment fee that will be applied on top of your budget request). A more detailed budget will be requested for labs selected to submit a full application.
What to Expect During the Award Period
General agreements and responsibilities:
- At the beginning of Year 1, join a kick-off meeting with lab team + Harvard Impact Labs (we will continue to meet every 6 months for the duration of the award).
- By the end of Year 1, provide finance and narrative reports describing progress towards Year 1 milestones. Year 2 funding is contingent on approval of the finance and narratives reports showing sufficient progress on milestones and expenditure of funds consistent with the budget.
- Share any tools created during the project that could help other teams, for example: data use agreements, job descriptions, partner training materials, tracking/reporting tools.
- Attend meetings with other Harvard Impact Labs participants.
- Participate in communications activities.
- The Harvard Impact Labs will be available for coaching or strategic planning as needed.
- All labs will be expected to designate someone as the project lead or project manager. If you don’t already have someone in this role, you will likely want to budget for hiring someone.
The Benefits of Harvard Impact Labs Start-Up Funding
As part of the Harvard Impact Labs community, you and your team join a community working on researching, testing, and scaling solutions to tough problems in the real world. You won’t be working in isolation: you’ll be able to draw on insights, experience, and connections from faculty, staff, and students at Harvard and beyond, as well as practitioners in your focus area.
Harvard Impact Labs faculty and staff have firsthand experience with the practical challenges that can slow or block your path. We use that experience—and our institutional and external networks—to support your team as you navigate obstacles and move your work toward lasting impact.
For instance, we can help you with:
- Navigating administrative hurdles. We can help you navigate sub-contracting, data sharing, and research agreements. We also seek to streamline them at Harvard more broadly.
- Building a team. We can guide you in building your team, including identifying relevant skill needs, building out job descriptions, and recruiting roles such as Project Manager, and help you navigate Harvard’s hiring processes.
- Strengthening partnerships. We can help you set clear expectations with your external partners and earn their trust.
- Forging coalitions and building support. Creating change often requires more than demonstrating cost-effectiveness. We can help you overcome inertia, competing priorities, and/or special interests and connect you with influential stakeholders or coalitions if needed.
Sustaining the impact of your research. We can help you develop or refine your plan for longer-term implementation and scaling to maximize the impact of your research.
Contact
If you have questions, please email us at ImpactLabsAwards@hks.harvard.edu.
Frequently Asked Questions
- It is focused on solving a problem(s): Impact Labs are aimed at solving big social problems by making a sustained effort to test and identify solutions that can be deployed at scale.
- It is partnership based: Impact Labs are collaborations among scholars and people and organizations affected by an issue to jointly define the problem, co-create a learning agenda, generate and test hypotheses, identify and implement effective interventions, and scale solutions.
- It is built on an explicit theory of how science can contribute to public impact: Impact Labs present a clear theory of how their research will lead to changes in people’s lives, whether via new policies, programs, practices, or products that can be adopted or scaled.
- It involves a collaborative team: Impact Labs engage faculty, staff, and students working together with talented external practitioners.
- It provides learning opportunities: Impact Labs provide opportunities for in-depth student engagement from the undergraduate to the post-doctoral level. Impact Labs that receive start-up funds will be required to clearly contribute educational opportunities to the Harvard community
- Impact Labs produce cutting-edge research published in top journals, but their ultimate goal is to have an impact at a scale that improves people’s lives.
- Impact Labs work on a sustained basis over multiple years to make progress on a problem as opposed to creating a home for faculty writing papers related to a general topic area.
- They involve deep collaboration with external entities to design, test, and scale solutions, not just as a source of data or a vehicle for promoting findings.
- They do not aim primarily to translate existing academic research into action through public communications (though communications may be an important piece of an Impact Lab’s strategy).
We are problem agnostic. Any social problem is eligible, whether U.S. or international, if it: has collective and not just individual implications; affects a large number of people; reflects a failure of markets, governments, and other institutions; and cannot be understood or solved without an understanding of the human behaviors, institutions, and interactions involved.
We expect the research funded to produce insights suitable for academic publication. However, we also evaluate the success of our investments in terms of their influence on actions by practitioners and stakeholders, including policy makers, that improve people’s lives.
While we cannot review draft proposals, we’d be happy to answer questions or discuss different options you’re considering proposing. Simply email ImpactLabsAwards@hks.harvard.edu.
- In April 2026 we will release new applications for our Public Service Leave and Fellowship programs.
- We do not plan to release additional lab RFPs in 2026.
- If you would like to be notified of new RFPs, sign up for updates.
Eligibility
- All applicants must have one or more external organizations identified. External organizations may, for example, be federal, state, or local government agencies including school districts or police departments, consortia, nonprofit organizations, or businesses. They may play different roles, including generating research questions, solution design, implementation, research design, interpreting results, or adapting solutions for sustained impact. We prioritize investments in teams with partners actively engaged across the lifecycle of an R&D process.
- If you do not yet have an external organization with which you are working and are interested in partnership-based research, you may want to apply for the Impact Lab Development Fellowship. The fellowship provides training and mentorship for Harvard faculty who want to conceptualize new impact labs or a new line of work in an existing lab. Part of the fellowship process involves identifying and connecting with potential external partners.
Principal Investigators must be tenured, tenure-track, or full-time Professors of the Practice or Professors in Residence at Harvard. Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Dental Medicine faculty whose primary affiliation is with the HMS Quad (i.e., Harvard paid) are eligible for Lab Start-Up Funding. HMS and HSDM faculty with primary appointments at an HMS affiliate are not eligible, but are welcome to apply to our Impact Lab Development Fellowship or Public Service Leave.
- Faculty may apply as individuals or with colleagues at Harvard or other universities if there is clarity about the contributions and roles of each.
- Each PI can submit only one proposal at a time, but faculty can serve as co-investigators on multiple projects.
- The PI(s) have primary responsibility for the successful delivery of the project.
Faculty members can be the lead Principal Investigator (PI) on only one proposal at a time. Faculty may serve as co-investigators or co-PIs on more than one application.
- Yes. We expect lab start-up funding to appeal to faculty at different stages in their work. For new teams that don’t yet have labs, the award could provide the start-up capital to set up a lab and to run an initial R&D cycle.
- This funding is not for one-off research. It should be part of a thoughtful plan to generate change in practices, programs, policies, or products that will improve people’s lives.
- For new labs awarded funding, we may be able to provide help in a variety of ways, such as in naming your lab, establishing a website/newsletter, or hiring a team.
We will be holding information sessions to help applicants understand the different funding opportunities and eligibility requirements. If you’re considering applying, we encourage you to attend.
- Register for Session 1: February 9, 2026 from 10-10:45am
- Register for Session 2: February 25, 2026 from 1-1:45pm
If you cannot attend, please feel free to email ImpactLabsAwards@hks.harvard.edu to receive a recording of the information sessions and/or for a short conversation to understand your options and likely fit.
Criteria
- We look for proposals with solutions that have strong pathways from science to impact. A pathway to scale through the private sector is one powerful way through which scientific insights can reach a large number of people.
- Proposals with pathways to scale through the private sector that have the strongest potential for funding are those that are rooted in a social problem and can clearly articulate why grant funding is needed. We aim to allocate capital to problems that are underinvested in because the private sector doesn’t see a profit motive to invest in R&D. In describing the social problem, be sure to articulate the market failure that makes this research unattractive to commercial capital. For example, the Gates Foundation funds research to address neglected diseases that commercial companies have under-invested in because of the limited market power of the people who are most affected by these diseases.
- However, if you conduct research with a private-sector company, the company will need to commit to making the insights and findings from the research widely shared and broadly available and to making any resulting products available and accessible.
- Digital technology can be a powerful tool in solving problems, testing solutions, and taking proven solutions to scale.
- Proposals for research on digital technologies that have the strongest potential for funding are those that are rooted in a deep understanding of the problem and articulate the market failure and why the proposed technology is the best approach to solving the problem.
In general, we have found the most competitive proposals share these qualities:
- Aimed at solving a compelling and clearly defined social problem;
- Have an existing strong relationship with one or more government agencies, nonprofits, or for-profit entities with which you will co-design the potential solutions and conduct the research;
- Propose a promising research design that will advance knowledge in the field;
- Represent a sustained program of research to address a social problem over multiple years (i.e., not a one-off research study); and
- Articulate a viable theory for how the research could lead to change that improves lives at the scale of the problem.