In 2022, the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering launched a competitive research funding program called SPROUT – Support for Promising Research Opportunities and Unconventional Teams – designed to encourage emerging collaborations at the intersection of research fields. SPROUT Awards quickly took root in the college’s research ecosystem and are now growing significantly with new resources and opportunities.

With funds from the Duffield Launch Fund, recently established with a portion of a record-setting naming gift from alumnus David A. Duffield ’62, MBA ’64, to advance the college’s current strategic priorities, Duffield Engineering plans to invest an additional $6 million in the program over the next four years.

“It has been incredible to watch the SPROUT program grow from a seed of an idea about how to keep fresh and unconventional research efforts going into an established and distinctive part of the college,” said Lois Pollack, associate dean for research and graduate studies at Duffield Engineering. “This investment opens up new opportunities to ensure that we maintain and advance our robust research ecosystem.”

As originally conceived, SPROUT Awards are intended to support teams of investigators with demonstrated collaborative success, typically those working on projects that have received positive reviews from outside agencies but not yet been awarded funding. The support is expected to enable them to further develop their idea, with the expectation that they will submit an augmented proposal to an external agency. 

Past SPROUT Awards have gone to a wide range of projects, including exploring the mechanics of early-stage bone metastasis, analyzing price formation policies in wholesale electricity markets, 3D-printing walls that protect against rising sea levels, developing a reversible male contraceptive, and detecting life on distant ocean worlds, among dozens of others. All schools and departments within Duffield Engineering have been represented in at least one of the collaborations – as have several other Cornell colleges based in Ithaca and New York City.

In a recent survey of past SPROUT awardees, 70 percent said the support led to at least one proposal submission to an external funding agency. Of the remainder, all but one respondent indicated that they plan to submit a proposal in the future. Recipients credited SPROUTS with helping to secure millions of dollars in federal grants and philanthropic support. 

“The SPROUT program has proven capable of enabling meaningful progress,” said Pollack, who designed and administers the program. “It has also turned out to be remarkably flexible, making it an essential tool for maintaining momentum as the research landscape changes around us.”

In 2025, Duffield Engineering rolled out Expanded SPROUTs, a variation of the standard program that prioritized support for researchers looking to pivot their work after being affected by an unprecedented slew of federal stop work orders. While those orders have been lifted, Pollack said the national research environment remains more unpredictable than it has been in decades. With the infusion of funding from the Duffield Launch Fund, she plans to create yet another new pathway to success for particularly promising research collaborations.  

In the fifth cycle of standard SPROUT Awards, which is now accepting submissions, additional funding will be available for projects that have been denied external support despite receiving the level of positive reviews that would have assured it in years past.

“In Duffield Engineering, we are committed to developing the knowledge necessary to forge a better future,” said Lynden Archer, the Joseph Silbert Dean of Engineering. “SPROUTs have become an essential part of how we advance that mission, and we are so grateful to have a resource like the Duffield Launch Fund to help us expand the impact of this important program.”