One of the aims of the Radboud Young Academy (RYA) is to unlock the huge potential of interdisciplinary research and to increase cross-faculty interdisciplinary collaborations within the Radboud University and Radboudumc. Since fruitful partnerships across disciplines, fields of study and faculties often start with relatively small initiatives or modest exchanges, the RYA presents the annual RYA Cross-Faculty Catapult Grants: 2 grants of € 5K each for a 1-year interdisciplinary initiative. With this grant, RYA wants to provide an incentive for applicants to initiate a collaborative initiative across the borders of their own faculty and institute.
Please use this application template for preparing your application, and email the complete form to youngacademy [at] ru.nl (youngacademy[at]ru[dot]nl) on or before 30 January 2026.
Requirements
- The initiative can be anything in the area of research (e.g., expert meeting, field research, resource gathering), education (e.g., a collaborative course inside or outside a curriculum, training, workshops), or outreach (e.g., a series of lectures, the translation of research into other media);
- The initiative must be feasible, innovative, and show clear potential to lead to longer-term collaboration;
- The initiative must present a new collaboration: the applicants have not received previous joint funding and have not yet published together;
- The applicants present the insights of their initiative at one of the RYA Serendipity Sessions.
Practical requirements
- The applicants need to be affiliated with Radboud University and/or Radboudumc;
- The initiative must include applicants from at least two different faculties and from different institutes;
- Only one application per person per year is allowed;
- It is allowed to apply with an unselected application from last year;
- Persons who were awarded with the RYA cross-faculty catapult grants are no longer eligible;
- Applicants can not be exhaustively RYA members.
Timeline
- Deadline submission: 30 January 2026
- Announcement of results: End of February 2026
- Duration of the project: March – December 2026
Assessment
- We will assess whether your proposal meets the requirements (see above);
- Among all proposals that meet the requirements, a lottery selects 2 initiatives that will receive the grant.