Grants

PSI grants are administered by a Grants Committee. Its current members are:

• Markus Varga, Austria, PSI Conservation Officer, Convener
• Deborah Austin, USA
• Sergio Lloreda, Colombia
• John MacDougal, USA
• John Vanderplank, UK

The Objectives of PSI grants

The grants are intended to further PSI’s stated mission, and in particular to:

• Support the conservation of Passiflora species, and
• Help spread knowledge of the genus

What projects are eligible for funding

PSI will consider funding activities and equipment which further these objectives, such as:

• Expeditions
• Study trips
• Visits to herbaria
• Conference attendance
• Cultivation in country of origin
• Seed conservation and seed banks
• Investment in equipment
• Collaboration with local institutions

Members of the Grants Committee and PSI Officers are not eligible for funding, nor are commercial activities such as collection for fruit produce.

How to apply

Applications will be considered in a two-stage process:

Stage 1: Pre-proposal

Well before the date when funding is required, a one-page pre-proposal should be submitted to the convener at Conservation[at]PassifloraSociety.org.  The pre-proposal must include the following details of the activity/equipment for which funding is sought:

• its purpose
• expected dates
• approximate costs and amount of funding sought
• the name and relevant formal and informal qualifications of the leader and other persons involved
• a statement setting out how it will benefit the community and meet the objectives of PSI grants.

Each pre-proposal will be considered by the convener. If he deems it unsuitable, or no more funding is available at that time, he will notify the applicant as soon as possible. If he deems it suitable, the convener will ask the applicant to proceed to stage 2 and submit a full proposal.

Stage 2: Full proposal

Full proposals should be commensurate with the project (e.g. 4-5 pages for an expedition, 1-2 pages for conference attendance or herbarium visit), and must detail:

• The planned activity (e.g. travel routes, studied areas, targeted species, cooperation with local institutions, acquisition of equipment, etc.)
• The expected costs and amount of funding sought
• The date funding is required, and the preferred currency (US$, EU€ or GB£)
• Other sources of funding
• How permits are to be acquired when necessary
  • It is the responsibility of the applicant to obtain the permits typically needed for fieldwork projects. PSI will not seek to check any such permits, but reserves the right to look into them if required
• How conservation will be benefited
• Participation of local institutions
• Deliverables, e.g. the presence of species in a certain area, database of discovered species and locations, equipment used for conservation and a mandatory report on the activity for the PSI journal and where possible a presentation to a PSI conference
  • It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that a report is written and sent to the editor of the journal, and where possible a presentation is made, whether by a member of his team or by himself
  • In the event that it proves impossible to substantively provide the expected deliverables, funding must be promptly returned to PSI, unless dispensation is granted
  • Any report, article, or presentation based on a project supported by a PSI grant must include a suitably prominent acknowledgement of this support

Priority will be given to proposals evidencing realistic conservation efforts in the study area, such as:

• Letter from a local botanical garden expressing interest in receiving seeds or cuttings from any Passiflora collected, and promising to keep the seeds in optimum storage conditions or to plant the cuttings in a protected space
• Agreement with the owner or manager of a local Passiflora collection that they will germinate seeds collected and keep the resulting plants in cultivation

Expected budget and quantum of grants

The total amount available for grants will be announced by PSI at the beginning of each year. When it is used up, no further applications can be funded until the following year and the call for proposals will be closed. For 2026 the grants committee will have an initial budget of €4,000. Budgets for future years will depend on the income and other commitments of PSI and the successfulness of grants given in prior years.

In general, PSI grants will target small-scale projects where its funding can make a significant difference to their viability and will typically be in the range of €500-1,000.

Additional donations

Details of proposals which PSI has recently agreed to fund in whole or part, along with proposals deemed worthy of funding but unable to be funded, will be published on this page so that, if appropriate, they can be topped up by additional donations from PSI members and the general public.

Notification of success, payment of grants and cancellations

Applicants will be notified of the amount awarded, if any, as soon as practicable.

If payment for the project in advance is requested, payment of 75% of the amount awarded will normally be made to successful applicants not less than 2 weeks before the date funding is required, otherwise it will be made on completion of the project, provided in both cases that the applicant has submitted a satisfactory report on any previously funded project. This date can be adjusted in consultation with the Convener. The remaining 25% will normally be paid within 2 weeks of the receipt of a satisfactory report on this project.

If a project is cancelled and/or a grant is not taken up at the time expected, the funds allotted will be withdrawn and added to the budget available for other projects

The next meeting is planned for 11th April 2026

Applications for 2026 are now being considered. If you have a project for which you would like a grant, please submit your application as soon as possible.

No projects have yet been accepted for 2026 so none are currently open to additional funding.

2025

• $1,000 towards a field trip to Guyane (French Guiana) by Jan Rasche, with the goal of
  • studying Passiflora growth in the dry season
• $2,300 towards an expedition to Peru and Colombia led by Yero Kuethe, with the goals of
  • searching for rare Passiflora species, many not found for a very long time, some not documented for over a hundred years
  • collecting any such species and creating herbaria
• $2700 towards additional molecular analyses for inclusion by Rebecca Hilgenhof in her Ph. D. thesis, in which she
  • studies the relationship of leaf shape and laying of eggs by butterflies.
  • uses DNA sequencing to reconstruct the evolution of subgenus Astrophea
  • examines the characteristics of leaves and their cyanogenic contents
  • with the grant is enabled to cover additional species and obtain a fuller picture of the Passiflora “family tree”

2024

• $500 towards the cost to Joseph Söhngen of participating in a field trip led by Yero Kuethe, with the goal of
  • rediscovering Passiflora clypeophylla
• $1500 towards an expedition to Guyana and Brazil led by Yero Kuethe. This region is very poorly investigated and the expedition is of considerable interest.
  • • The expedition had to be postponed due to permit delays
• $1000 towards a field trip to the Amapá region of Brazil by Maxime Rome with the aim of
  • studying a North-South transect of the region
  • with particular emphasis on the supersection Coccinea
  • analysing the characteristics of the species found using morphological data and DNA sequencing
    • The expedition was postponed due to the ill health of one of the participants

2023

• $1,000 towards the cost of a one month field trip to Bolivia led by Yero Kuethe, with the goals of
  • rediscovering lost Passiflora species, and their documentation, especially in Yero’s planned monograph on the genus
  • discovering new species to be herbarized and catalogued for official publication
  • assessing the conservation status of these species