Transitioning to a clean-energy future requires far more than just building new renewable energy projects. It means developing next-generation batteries, discovering fundamental opportunities in chemistry, re-assessing electricity markets that were designed for fossil fuels, building better storage and distribution infrastructure, and ensuring that workers are trained and organized to benefit from the transition. 

The 2030 Project: A Cornell Climate Initiative has announced its third year of funding for Fast Grants, seed money that supports researchers in moving from discovery to public impact. This year’s request for proposals includes a special emphasis on projects that will support the development of energy systems of the future, one of the 2030 Project’s four organizing themes. 

“We hope to catalyze projects that have a promising trajectory toward being able to scale into massive impact, even if we’re taking the first step on a journey,” said Ben Furnas ‘06, executive director of The 2030 Project. “Faculty who have a new, untested idea can start something, gather some initial data, refine their research questions, and then hopefully move on to bigger grants and bigger ideas.”

Interested researchers can apply online and a virtual information session on the grants will be held Sept. 9. Proposals are due Oct. 18, and winning applicants will be notified in November. Awarded projects will receive between $10,000-$25,000, though select awards may receive more. 

“We call them fast grants for a reason – our window from requests for proposals to fund disbursement is really short. Even though it’s not a huge amount of money, we take pride in being very flexible and very fast,” Furnas said. “Faculty can use these funds for things that more conventional grants might not support. We trust Cornell faculty and expertise to use money wisely, so our role is to identify projects quickly and get resources to them quickly, so they can start doing what they need to do.”

Past Fast Grant recipients have explored a wide array of topics covering all four of The 2030 Project’s theme areas: materials of the future, energy systems of the future, food and farms of the future, and societies and policies of the future. Many have gone on to win bigger federal grants, to make breakthroughs in basic science, or to develop new research and industry partnerships. 

“In years past, we’ve had many projects begin with Fast Grants and then, they’re brought into The 2030 Project ecosystem and we continue to support them with bigger grants, with networking opportunities like the Climate Solutions Roundtable, with industry collaborations, and many other benefits,” Furnas said. “Our goal with these Fast Grants is not just to support great individual projects, it’s to launch new collaborations and deepen the community of scholars working on sustainability issues.”

Krisy Gashler is a freelance writer for the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.