RI Research Alliance
The RI Research Alliance awards Collaborative Research Grants through a competitive granting process with the goal of stimulating cutting-edge collaborative research projects across the State’s research institutions.
Research Themes
Assessing Resilience
What are the key data, methods, and/or techniques needed to assess the current health of Narragansett Bay its resilience to anthropogenic stressors in real time?
Increasing Engagement
How can novel approaches to the visualization of complex information, coastal species and environmental change, fostered through the collaboration of artists, designers, engineers and scientists, promote broader engagement in and understanding of scientific research, data, and findings?
Understanding
Complexity
How can our understanding and data collections of the physical, biogeochemical and ecological processes that contribute to coastal ecosystem complexity be used to improve and evaluate Narragansett Bay ecosystem models?
New Innovations
What new innovations in sensors are needed to improve the collection of data on the physical, bio-geo-chemical, and ecological processes as well as anthropogenic stressors (e.g., pollution) that are impacting Narragansett Bay?
Improving
Sustainability
How does the environment affect humans and how can human behavior and responses be modified to improve coastal ecological and economic sustainability?
Big Data
What new tools or techniques are needed to capture, analyze, and disseminate large data sets that engage and inform academic, industry, government, and community stakeholders?
Grant Stats
About RI Research Alliance
In 2006, STAC launched the RI Research Alliance to create a statewide platform to promote collaboration across the state’s research organizations. Since its inception, the Alliance has awarded over $11 million in state funds through a competitive granting process with the goal of stimulating cutting-edge collaborative research projects across the State’s research institutions. These grants advance projects that are collaborative across institutions, are well-positioned to receive follow-on federal or private venture funding, and that have significant commercialization potential.
About Collaborative Research Grants
Collaborative Research Grants support teams that are expanding RI’s research capacity and pioneering our future through new ideas, technologies and innovations.
The Collaborative Research Grant program provides funding to projects that focus on building research capacity across institutions and advancing the competitiveness of RI researchers to secure additional funding. Grants are also awarded to projects that contribute to current or future economic development of the state through technology development and commercialization or demonstrate strong translational components.
From 2007 through 2018, the program awarded approximately $11 million to over 75 teams throughout Rhode Island. The funding has supported projects to design high-tech toys for children with cerebral palsy, study algae blooms, develop new nanotechnologies and improve the design of prosthetic limbs. To date, awardees have attracted over $40 million in follow-on funding from public and private sources with additional dividends expected.