Apply for Seed Funding
Youth Opportunity & Wellbeing Pitchfest

NYU faculty, researchers, staff, and PhD and postdoctoral candidates who presented a research project idea at the Youth Opportunity & Wellbeing Pitchfest (February 27, 2026) are invited to submit their idea for seed funding by Monday, April 13, 2026.

Presenters may decide to:

• Submit individually, with the same team, or include new collaborators;

• Resubmit their project idea as initially submitted for the presentation, or refine and modify it.

Presenters are considered leads or co-leads of their project idea. Ideas that were not presented at the Pitchfest cannot be submitted for seed funding.

Timeline

• Apply for seed funding by April 13, 2026 (11:59 PM).

• Awardees will be announced by early June 2026.

About funding

• We anticipate awarding seed grants of approximately $5,000 each. The final number and amount of awards will depend on the number of applications received, the amount of funding requested, and the quality of the proposed projects.

• Funding may be used for a wide variety of costs, such as researcher time, postdoctoral/graduate/undergraduate student salaries, project/meeting  materials, stipends, incentives, and other direct costs.

• After the selection process, awardees may also request in-kind support (e.g., follow-up meetings, mentorship, guidance from the planning team, connections to relevant university offices,  etc.).

Selection Criteria 

• To qualify for seed funding, ideas and programs must enhance opportunities and/or support young people (ages 0–24). 

• Priority will be given to projects that are novel and innovative; address a critical area of need; involve an interdisciplinary team; demonstrate potential for impact and scalability; are sustainable and feasible; show a strong likelihood of success; and may yield publishable research.

• The review committee will be finalized once the seed funding application closes and will include expertise relevant to the submitted projects.