T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience: Call for Proposals FY2026

T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience: Call for Proposals FY2026

The T&C Chen Center for Social and Decision Neuroscience (SDN) seeks proposals to study the neuroscience of in human individual and social decision making.

One to two awards, up to $70,000 total for 1 year duration.

A progress report (up to 3 pages) is required after the first six months of the grant.

Note: If after six months the original project is not progressing as planned and hoped, these grants can be proposed to be repurposed upon an amended application to Chen SDN (much as with NSF and other funding agencies). If the repurposed grant is sufficiently different than the original application it will be held for consideration until the next RFP cycle.

Eligibility, terms and review criteria

The full proposal must include:

1) A completed Application Form. Download the fillable PDF form here
Please provide the following information in the dedicated fields on the application form:
a) RFP applying for
b) Lead PI name and division
c) Co-PI name(s) and division(s), if applicable
d) Proposal Title
e) Project Summary, 2 - 3 sentences.
f) Proposal questions, answer each in 3 - 4 sentences.

• How is it innovative and different from "business-as-usual" science in your lab?
• What important and fundamental problem in neuroscience does the proposal address? Be as specific as possible while communicating the fundamental nature of the question.
• How does it engage other members from the Caltech community?
• Do you anticipate being able to apply for federal funding based on the results of this proposal? If so, please provide an approximate timeline and strategy for this process.
• To your knowledge, is anything similar being done by colleagues at other universities? If so, by whom and where and how does it differ from what you propose?

2) Additional Documents: to be attached separately from the application form.
a) What do you propose to do? Description of your project, 500 words max, 12-point font. One page of figures with legends, 4 figures max (use 10 or 11-point font for figure legends, these are not counted in the 500 word limit) and list of references (no page limit).
b) Simple budget (no page limit): Outline how you propose to use the funds, each with a short (1-2 sentence) justification.
Budget may include:

c) Document listing other support: title of grant, amount of money, and brief one sentence description, (no page limit).
d) Signed Division Approval Form (DAF): Please note that if you are submitting a proposal with collaboration between labs in different divisions then the DAF must be signed by all Division Chairs.

Submission Email your completed application form, project description, budget, list of support, and DAF as a single PDF file to: [email protected]
Name your attached PDF file as follows: Last Name_2026
Your proposal will be uploaded to Box and you will receive a confirmation email from Box within a few minutes of submission. If you do not receive a confirmation email, please contact us directly at [email protected]