FACULTY RESEARCH COMMITTEE
ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE 2016-17 COMPETITIONS FOR FACULTY RESEARCH EXPENSE GRANTS
The Faculty Research Committee administers funds available through the Dean of Faculty’s budget to aid faculty in their scholarly endeavors. Such aid is available for all stages of research, from inception to the final push to publication or performance. [NB: As used here, “research” also includes creative activities in the arts intended to lead to public performances or exhibitions, or publication.] The FRC provides support to faculty through three programs:
1) Research Expense Grants (replacing the One-Year and Three-Year Grants) are available for beginning or continuing scholarly projects;
2) Completion Grants, intended to bring work to publication or public performance/exhibition; and
3) the Student Research Program, which funds Trinity undergraduates to work as research assistants on faculty research projects.
Requests for Completion Grants are reviewed continually throughout the year; applications for Research Expense Grants and for the Student Research Program are reviewed under two deadlines each academic year.
Research Expense Grants
Under the Research Expense Grants program, faculty members may request support for up to two years.
In order to make FRC funds as widely available as possible, the Committee will ensure that all viable one-year proposals are funded before considering proposals for longer periods. The Committee also reserves the right to fully or partially fund requests of more than one year’s duration.
Of particular interest to the Committee are those proposals that serve to enhance the potential for faculty members to compete for external support for the continuation and development of their scholarly work.
Awards provide for reimbursement of a wide range of research costs. Examples of such costs include: travel necessary to perform the research; travel to archives; library and archive fees; materials and supplies; student assistance and other types of research assistance (e.g., translators, transcription services), acquisition of materials and certain types of equipment.
Costs that are not covered by Research Expense Grants include the purchase of major capital equipment; publication preparation charges, such as indexing and page charges (these are covered by the Completion Grants); and travel to scholarly meetings—including travel to present research results—funds for which are administered by the Dean of Academic Affairs. Faculty Research Committee awards may not be used for course buyouts. Funds may not be used to cover the costs of meals during travel.
DEADLINE: The Faculty Research Committee will review proposals for the Research Expense Grant program under two deadlines in 2017-2018. The FRC requires that all proposals be submitted via email no later than 4:00 p.m. on the day of the deadline. Proposals shall be attached to an email as a single PDF document and sent to Kristin Magendantz, director of faculty grants, (). Late applications will not be considered. The application must also be submitted to the applicant’s department chairperson by the deadline.
Please note that awarding of the grant is contingent upon timely submission of reports from previous FRC awards.
Applications Due Notification of Results
Fall competition: Applications due: Tuesday, October 3, 2017.
Notification: mid-December
Spring competition: Applications due: Tuesday, February 6, 2018
Notification: mid-March
ELIGIBLITY: All tenured and tenure-track Faculty members and full-time non-tenure-track faculty whose employment contract extends through the grant period are eligible to apply. Please note that priority is given to tenured and tenure-track faculty who are employed full time. Funding is contingent on the recipient’s continued employment at the College during the period of the grant.
GRANT PERIODS: Ordinarily, grant periods will begin June 1, 2018. However, grants may begin as early as January 1, 2018, for awards made in Fall 2017, with permission from the Dean of Academic Affairs.
GRANT EXPENSES:
1. Non-personnel expenses: Faculty may apply for up to $4,000 per year to cover the costs of non-personnel expenses listed above, as justified by appropriate budgetary documentation (see Appendix 3.)
2. Research assistants: Faculty members whose research assistants meet the criteria of the Student Research Program should apply for separate funding through this program.
If the research assistant’s duties do not provide sufficient educational benefit to the student to fit the criteria for the SRP, faculty who are applying for grant periods of more than one year may apply for up to $3500 (total, not per year) to fund research assistants. These assistants may be Trinity undergraduates or other qualified individuals. The Dean’s office will cover the cost of on-campus summer housing if needed.
SUMMARY REPORTS: Grant recipients must submit a final report of the work undertaken during the grant period to the Director of Faculty Grants and Dean of Academic Affairs by October 1 following the conclusion of the grant period. Faculty members holding multiyear grants must provide an interim progress report by October 1 in each year of an active grant. Failure to submit this report may impact future funding.
CRITERIA: Proposals for Faculty Research Expense Grants will be judged on:
§ the clarity of the proposal
§ the coherence of the objectives
§ the clarity of the methods of research
§ the persuasiveness of the case made concerning the significance of the research
§ the likelihood that the objectives can be achieved during the funding period
§ the likelihood that the support will have fruitful results
§ the likelihood that the proposed work will further the applicant’s scholarly program
§ the justification for the budget in relation to the project
§ the applicant’s history of receiving College funds
Decisions will be based solely on the written applications submitted to the Committee. Because the Committee expects to receive more deserving applications than it can fund, preference may be given to those who have not received internal funding in the recent past or do not have access to alternative internal funding sources.
The Faculty Research Committee has members representing each of the four curricular groupings (Humanities, Social Sciences, Natural Sciences Mathematics, and the Arts). Each proposal is read and judged by all members of the Committee (six faculty members and the Dean of Academic Affairs). It is, therefore, imperative that proposals be written in language that can be readily understood by a college- wide faculty committee, most—or all—of the members of which are not specialists in the applicant’s field. Particular care should be given to avoid jargon and technical language; if the use of such language is unavoidable, it should be accompanied by a clear explanation.
GUIDELINES: The following guidelines should be strictly adhered to in preparing your proposal. Please refer as well to the instructions below regarding preparing proposals for electronic submission.
All sections of the proposal (with the exception of the budget form) should be prepared using a clear, standard font (e.g., Times Roman, Arial) no smaller than 11pt, with 1” margins on all sides.
COVER SHEET: Title of project, name, department, and an abstract of no more than 100 words.
BODY OF THE PROPOSAL: In no more than five (5) double-spaced pages (approximately 2,000 words)—excluding references, but including figures, tables, and graphs—explain your project. If significant illustration is required, it may be attached as an appendix. Use the following section headings and explain them specifically:
§ a statement of the problem/goals of your proposed research;
§ the significance of the work to your discipline;
§ the research methods to be used;
§ how the proposed project fits into your long-term scholarly program;
§ the plan for dissemination of the results;
§ If appropriate, include a brief review of relevant literature.
Because this is an expense program, give special attention in the body of the proposal to the rationales for budget items and their relation to the methods you will employ. Requests for expenses that may fall into a gray area between capital and non-capital expenditures must be fully justified in the body of the proposal.
APPENDIX 1, Curriculum Vitae: Provide an abbreviated curriculum vitae of not more than two pages, to include: education (including title of Ph.D. thesis), employment history, current research interests, and no more than ten publications (or creative works or presentations of work). The publications should be divided into the five most relevant to the current application, and five other significant works. If the applicant is beginning a new area and does not have relevant publications, up to ten of the second category may be listed.
APPENDIX 2, Available Funding: a) List all current and anticipated sources of internal and external funding. This should include, but is not limited to, external grants and/or indirect slush funds, previous FRC awards, other Trinity grants, start-up funds, and funds available to faculty who hold endowed or named chairs. The list should indicate plans for the allocation of these funds during the period of the proposed project. b) List all attempts to obtain funding from Trinity and from external sources during the past five years or since coming to Trinity (whichever is shorter). Include the title of the proposals, amounts requested, sources, periods of proposed funding, and the disposition of the proposals. Provide a brief indication of the publications or similar results for each grant awarded. The applicant’s accomplishments resulting from previous funding will be considered as one piece of evidence regarding the likelihood that present support will have fruitful results.
The FRC pays close attention to Appendix 2 in reviewing requests, and applicants are urged to prepare this section carefully. In the interests of making College resources as widely available as possible, it is the sense of the Committee that those faculty members who have access to restricted funds should be expected to provide some cost-sharing on FRC awards. Although the College does not currently place time limits on the use of start-up funds, applicants must make a persuasive case for FRC funding of research expenses that could otherwise be covered by the start-up account. Applicants who have balances remaining on prior FRC awards should provide 1) a statement showing the current balance for each grant and 2) a concise and specific plan for the use of these funds. For current funding status, contact Patricia Moody, director of academic finance.
APPENDIX 3, Budget form: List anticipated expenses and provide a separate budget justification sheet as appropriate.
Revised June 20, 2017