CMI Announces First Round of 2026 Early Stage Pilot Funding

The Center for Medical Innovation (CMI) announces the first round of the Early Stage Medical Technology Pilot Funding Program for 2026. CMI seed grants ($10K-$25K) support the mission to promote development of innovative early-stage technologies that address patient care, and which result from partnerships between clinical and engineering faculty at the University of Pittsburgh. To date, CMI has awarded  $1.6 million to 90 projects since the program started in 2012. Roughly 25 percent of proposals receive awards for one year, and 15 new companies have been formed to commercialize the technologies. Over $22M in grants and private funding have been obtained by project teams that received early stage CMI grants. 

This effort is in collaboration with the Swanson School of Engineering (Department of Bioengineering), the Schools of Health Sciences, and the Innovation Institute.  Pre-proposals can be submitted by clinically-affiliated faculty members of the Schools of Health Sciences (SOHS), engineering faculty with appointments in the Swanson School of Engineering (SSOE), or a clinician/engineer partnership from SOHS and SSOE. Students enrolled in SSOE or SOHS are also eligible to apply, but an advisor with a primary faculty appointment in either the SSOE or SOHS must be designated in the submission.

The deadline for submission of pre-proposals is March 1, 2026 at 11:59pm. Awards for final full proposals will start June 1, 2026. More information can be found in this PDF.