MIT Energy Initiative awards 10 seed fund grants for early-stage energy research
Supporting promising energy research across a wide range of disciplines is one of the core tenets of the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Every spring for the past 10 years, the MITEI Seed Fund Program has awarded funding to a select group of early-stage energy research projects. This spring, 10 projects were awarded $150,000 each, for a total of $1.5 million. “Providing support for basic research, especially research in its early stages, has proven to be an incredibly fruitful way of fostering creative interdisciplinary solutions to energy challenges,” says MITEI Director Robert Armstrong, the Chevron Professor of Chemical Engineering. “This year, we received 76 proposals from applicants with innovative ideas. It was one of the most competitive groups of proposals we’ve seen.” To date, MITEI has supported 161 projects with grants totaling $21.4 million. These projects have covered the full spectrum of energy research areas, from fundamental physics and chemistry to policy and...