Guidelines for Faculty Research Grants  

Faculty Research Grants are of the following types:

1. Regular Research Grants, awarded to support individual, group, or collaborative research projects.

• An individual project to be conducted by one faculty member.

• A collaborative project must have a single Principal Investigator (PI) who may receive assistance from other faculty members. 

• A group project with a unifying, well-defined, and specific goal or central research theme to which each component project relates and contributes.  Each component project will have its own PI. 

2. Seed Grants for newly appointed or promoted faculty members.

1. Regular Research Grants

 This program seeks to encourage quality research throughout the University. Faculty members are urged to supplement URB funding with additional grants from other sources. The department Chairperson, the College Research Committee (CRC), and the dean of the relevant college must approve all proposals before submitting them to the URB. Faculty research grants will normally not exceed RO 3,000.  This ceiling may be raised in the case of group and interfaculty collaborative projects. The URB will review all group applications with great scrutiny to insure that they fit the definition, and the following guidelines will be followed:   

1. Both individual and group/collaborative applications are considered.  If group applications include scholars from outside DU, URB funds can only be used to support the DU faculty members involved.  A primary investigator must be designated for all group applications. The primary investigator’s CRC will evaluate the group application. A faculty member who is the PI for a group project, or of a sub-project that is part of a larger group project, may not also apply for an individual research grant.

2. Funding of grants is competitive.  The CRC will evaluate applications according to the guidelines and will carefully review all budgets.  Prior research activity and quality of prior publications will be considered.  Projects must be ranked in clearly defined categories. The CRC must include written justification for its decisions with each recommendation.

3. Funding is generally for one year only, beginning September 1 (for longer term funding, see section D).  Grants are NOT extendable from one fiscal year to the next. Failure to use grants in a timely manner may jeopardize eligibility for new URB grants.  

4. Proposals for 1 to 3 years funding will be considered only during the Regular Funding Cycle. In this case, proposals should contain detailed description of the specific aims to be conducted each year, and the amount of funding required for these aims per year. Yearly funds cannot be carried over from one fiscal year to the next. Renewed funding during subsequent years will be contingent on providing an acceptable progress report of the research activities.

5. The regular research grant will be considered only for those who submit research proposals to external funding bodies such as The Research Council (TRC) (after approval by the URB). External funding is encouraged but failure to obtain it shall not jeopardize the chances of obtaining a regular URB research grant.

6. Upon the University Council’s recommendation, the University may designate areas of institutional priority and make additional funds available for grants in these areas.   

2. Seed Grants

Seed grants are intended to provide limited start-up funds for newly appointed faculty members. The department chairperson, the College Research Committee (CRC) and the dean must approve all proposals before submitting them to the URB. Faculty seed grants are normally up to RO 1,000.  Those eligible to apply for Seed Grants are: 

1. Faculty members who are newly appointed provided that they submit research proposals to external funding bodies such as The Research Council (TRC) (after approval by the URB). As for the regular grant, failure to obtain external grant shall not jeopardize the chances of obtaining a seed URB grant.

2. Lecturers or instructors who are newly promoted to a professorial rank without having benefited from URB funding prior to the promotion.