Research Incubator

Our Research Incubator program offers hands-on support for research projects using existing data to accelerate depression research activity of early-career faculty and emerging scholars across the University of Michigan. 

The deadline to apply for the 2025-26 cohort is June 27, 2025. Have questions or want to learn more? Attend one of our virtual Q & A sessions to hear program details.   

Supporting early-career mental health researchers

Early-career investigators have many creative research questions that have the potential to substantially advance the field of depression research. Yet, there are often hurdles in developing an impactful research program, including understanding resources, limited funding or protected research time, and a lack of a research team. Our Research Incubator program leverages existing dataset resources, paired with our team's support, to address these gaps so investigators can make high-impact research advances more quickly and efficiently. 

VIDEO: Learn more about the benefits of using existing data in research. 

Program details

Our program offers statistical support, project management and faculty expertise for research ideas for early-career faculty and emerging scholars from all disciplinary backgrounds. Our Data & Design Core team collaborates with participants to refine their research questions and leads all research tasks for the project. Support includes identifying relevant data sources, all data management and analysis, interpretation of results, and collaboratively partnering to disseminate findings. 

Who should apply

We aim to accelerate impactful depression research advances and build a robust, interdisciplinary research workforce. This program is particularly valuable for U-M investigators who:

• Have experienced barriers in seeing their research ideas through to completion.
• Are new to mental health research.
• Have limited experience working with secondary data.
• Have limited statistical capacity.
• Don’t have a dedicated research team.
• Have short-term projects that are smaller in scope that can be completed in less than one year.

Application process 

Here’s a list of information you'll need to submit your application:  

• Personal information (CV or biosketch, name, department and title).
• Summary of your research question, novelty, and potential scientific contribution (less than 500 words).
• A brief statement of how the project builds upon your research interests to date.
• Whether you’ve identified a potential data source or are looking for guidance.
• The area of your project that you'll need the most help with. 

The deadline to apply for our next cohort is June 27, 2025. Selected applicants will be notified by the end of August, and projects will start in September. 

Questions

 Visit our Frequently Asked Questions page for more information or email our team with additional questions.