Office of Research Selects Recipients for Inaugural Internal Grant Program

Faculty from across the University’s 11 academic schools and colleges have been selected to receive funding under a new internal grant program to help support research and advance collaborative scholarship. A total of 48 proposals out of 139 submitted have been recommended for awards under the new program, which was initiated by the University’s Office of Research in September.

Grants were awarded in three categories under the internal grant program: seed funds, small-scale funds and bridge funds.

The program originally called for allocating a total of $150,000 in funding to support preliminary expenses for faculty research. Because of the enthusiastic response from applicants, however, the Office of Research allocated an additional $50,000 and the Office of the Provost allocated $45,000, increasing the total available amount to $245,000.

The amount of funding for the 48 recommended proposals totals $244,985. The list of grant winners can be found here.

“I am thrilled with the great response we received to this inaugural funding program,” says Vice President for Research Gina Lee-Glauser. “This program is a fantastic way to foster research, scholarship and creative activity in support of the University’s research excellence initiative. It provides an important source of support for faculty to explore compelling intellectual questions that tap into many areas of expertise and lead to great research activity.”

Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost Liz Liddy says the grant program will help the University expand its research portfolio not only in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields but across all the disciplines. “I am especially delighted that we received proposals from across every school and college,” says Liddy. “The initiatives supported by this funding program will help drive scholarly activity that feeds collaboration and promotes a culture of research across the institution.”

Grants were awarded in three categories:

Seed funds: 22 proposals (out of 27 submissions) were selected for a recommended funding total of $19,000. Awardees were from the College of Arts and Sciences, Falk College, School of Education, iSchool, Law, Maxwell and Visual and Performing Arts.

Small-scale funds: 23 proposals (out of 109 submissions) were selected for a recommended funding total of $193,985. Awardees were from Architecture, College of Arts and Sciences, Engineering and Computer Science, Falk, School of Education, iSchool, Law, Maxwell, Newhouse, Visual and Performing Arts and Whitman.

Bridge funds: Three proposals (out of three submissions) were selected for a recommended funding total of $32,000. Awardees were from the College of Arts and Sciences and Falk.

Seed funds and small-scale funds provide support for travel, costs associated with collecting preliminary data, the logistics associated with fostering new collaborations or acquiring external expertise, or other potential expenses relating to the development of new scholarly initiatives.

Bridge funds provide support for externally funded projects that require support to sustain activity until the next funding year. Those proposals required one-to-one matching funds from their units.

Funding requests were reviewed by the University’s associate deans for research. Funding recommendations were made to the vice president for research, who made the final selections. Requests for bridge funds were handled directly by the vice president for research, with consideration given to peer reviews and other criteria.