Yes! There are other departments that grant funds to Harvard employees to solve specific problems. 

Some include:

• Campus Sustainability Innovation Fund
• Climate Change Solutions Fund
• HILT Spark Grant
• Lemann Brazil Research Fund
• William F. Milton Fund

The President’s Administrative Innovation Fund was created to foster a culture of administrative innovation and collaboration at Harvard. The University’s administrative senior leadership knows that staff members have many creative and innovative ideas; the fund was created to provide a path for moving some of those innovative ideas to action.

Proposals will be initially reviewed by multiple “judges” (made up of senior leaders and subject matter experts across the University). All those submitting proposals will receive feedback from these judges. This initial review will determine finalists who will then give a brief presentation on their idea to a group of senior leaders (members of the Harvard Administrative Innovation Group), and afterwards fund recipients will be awarded.

Decisions as to what proposals are funded will be based on the idea itself and what it proposes to do; how it maps to innovation in academic administration, service delivery or talent development; if it is a cross-collaborative project or one that could scale or be used at other parts of the University. Ideas that will enable us to create connections and community will be especially valued.

There are four different ‘types’ of innovations the PAIF is designed to fund:

1. Collective Action: You have had some successful experiments and would now like to bring your innovative solutions to a shared administrative challenge to a cross-school or cross-unit group.
2. Experiment (Minimum Viable Product, MVP): a very limited test of an idea that is expected to generate learning; and MVP uses the smallest set of features/activities possible to test a hypothesis.
3. Pilot: you have an idea for an innovation and hope to implement it at a small scale (e.g., in one School/Unit, or a select handful of Schools/Units)
4. Scale: You already have a successful local implementation of an innovation and seek to broaden its reach or impact by taking it ‘to the next level’

Not all proposals will receive funding. If your project is not funded, don’t give up. We expect to receive more good ideas than we can fund.

We will provide feedback on all proposals, in the event that there may be need for more research, or more detail on what the project will accomplish. We also hope if your first idea doesn’t move forward that it doesn’t inhibit you from submitting your second idea in the next cycle of the innovation fund. Remember, entrepreneurs learn from their ideas that didn’t make it and often come back with a much stronger idea the next time.

Additionally, still take advantage of the resources on the website to continue to learn more about innovation and to think of ways you can innovate in your job.

Yes, it is required that you share your interest in submitting a proposal with your manager. The President’s Administrative Innovation Fund does have support from President Bacow, the Executive Vice President Katie Lapp and the other senior leaders at the University including School Administrative Deans and Central Vice Presidents. We are hopeful that your manager will work with you to determine how best you can fit this opportunity into your day-to-day work.

Please send an email to: administrative_innovation@harvard.edu expressing your interest. Someone will be in touch with you.

Yes! We’d love to keep adding to our “Resources” tab so please send your resources to administrative_innovation@harvard.edu

Please send an email to: administrative_innovation@harvard.edu expressing your interest. Someone will be in touch with you.