Grants-in-Aid

Proposals must be routed and approved in NUgrant by 5:00pm, on the 2^nd Friday in October.

DESCRIPTION:  Grants-In-Aid awards are for projects that promote a faculty member’s research creative and scholarly activities which may or may not enhance the prospects for obtaining outside support. Grants-In-Aid are available to scholars from all disciplines and can be used for whatever aspect of a project during a twelve-month period deemed necessary by the applicant, except faculty salary support. Preference will be given to non-tenured early-career faculty and to those who have not received a Grant-In-Aid or Faculty Seed Grant from the Research Council in the previous two years.

AWARD AMOUNT: Grants-In-Aid provide a maximum award of $7,500 for individual applications and $10,000 for joint applications. They are made possible by support from the NU Foundation and are awarded by the Research Council.

SCOPE OF THE AWARDS:

• Funding can support any aspect of a project during a twelve-month period deemed necessary by the applicant, including but not limited to equipment, fees for permission to publish, subventions to support publication, salaries for research assistants, and travel.
• Funding cannot be used to support faculty salary or benefits.
• Award recipients are encouraged, but not required to submit a proposal for competitive external funding within 12 months of the end of the Grant period.

ELIGIBLITY INFORMATION:

• Applicants must be full-time (1.0 FTE) UNL faculty members on a continuous appointment (tenure-leading or tenured, with a rank of assistant professor or above), or a research (assistant/associate/full) professor or senior lecturer on the payroll of UNL. Visiting and adjunct appointees are excluded. Other employees of the University (e.g., Extension Educators, Lecturers, Professors of Practice and Senior Research Associates) will be eligible to apply for Research Council funds only if they can document all of the following:
  • Their university appointment includes research responsibilities;
  • They are eligible to be a Principal Investigator on a federally funded project in their role as a university employee;
  • They have a multi-year appointment with the University such that they will have an appointment during the period when the proposed project will be conducted, with the reasonable expectation of having this appointment should they apply for and receive a federal project;
  • There is evidence that they have a long-term commitment to the University;
  • Their supervising administrator writes a letter supporting their eligibility for Research Council funds.
• A faculty member may submit only one application as principal investigator per funding cycle but is not limited as a co-investigator or team member on other projects.
• UNL faculty can be awarded only one internal award from the Office of Research and Innovation as a PI in any academic year. Furthermore, UNL faculty cannot be awarded more than two internal grants as PI over any 4-year period.

REVIEW AND AWARD PROCESS:

• Applications are reviewed by the Research Council. The Research Council makes funding recommendations to ORED, which will make the final selection
• Announcement of awards is usually in December following the submission deadline.
• The award period is the calendar year (January 1 to December 31) starting after the announcement has been made.

REQUIREMENTS FOR ALL OFFICE OF RESEARCH AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AWARDS:

• Recipients are expected to participate in at least one grant-writing seminar sponsored by the Office of Research and Innovation during the award period if they have not already done so.
• If possible, applicants should identify external sources of funding and specify a timeline for proposal submission. In that case, recipients are expected to actively pursue external funding (grants and/or fellowships) within 24 months of receipt of award (12 months after it ends). Failure to do so may disqualify applicants from future competitions.
• A one-page final report is required, due to the Office of Research and Innovation (ORED) no later than 90 days after the conclusion of funding.
• Recipients are expected to serve as reviewers on at least two ORED ad hoc review panels over a 4-year period. Failure to do so may disqualify applicants from future competitions.

GENERAL SELECTION CRITERIA:
Proposals must address these criteria (100 point scale):

• Scientific or scholarly merit and relevance (50 points)
• Qualifications of project personnel (25 points)
• Budget and facilities (25 points)

PROPOSAL PREPARATION INSTRUCTIONS
Only electronic submissions via NUgrant will be accepted (http://nugrant.unl.edu). Paper applications will not be accepted. If you are a first-time user of NUgrant you can log in NUgrant using your Blackboard username and password.
Information required as part of the electronic NUgrant application:
1. 250-word abstract (using lay terms accessible to a broad audience).
2. 3-page proposal plus a 1-page bibliography (max.). The proposal must include sufficient detail to convince reviewers of the project’s scientific or scholarly merit and relevance, and written in lay language understandable to non-specialists. Please make the proposal and bibliography single-spaced, using an 11-point font and one-inch margins. The proposal should include information to demonstrate to reviewers its merit and potential for external funding, including the following elements:

a. Introduction
• Pose a clear research question or topic that specifies the purpose of the project.
• Situate the project in existing literature, providing background/rationale that addresses the significance of the project to the applicant’s field.
• List the project’s short-term objectives and describe how the project fits into the applicant’s long-term plan for scholarship.
• Explain how the proposed project fits with the applicant’s previous/other research.

b. Proposed plan
• Describe data/information sources, method of analysis, and expectations regarding outcomes.
• Identify specific research/scholarly activities to be conducted, and how these activities will enhance the applicant’s future research and scholarship.
• Describe what the seed grant will accomplish that cannot be achieved through other means.
• In the case of a joint application, proposers should take care to delineate exactly the activities and contributions for which each participant will be responsible.

c. If applicable, timeline for external funding proposal submission (< 24 months)
• Identify a specific external funding opportunity (program and funding agency), submission deadlines, and submission timeline.
• Articulate the fit of the proposed project, explaining how the project aligns with the program priorities.

3. List of Key Personnel: attach a 2-page biographical sketch/vitae summary for each faculty member involved in the project.
4. Current & Pending Support: List all funded and pending internal and external grants for all faculty members involved in the project, including title, award amount, funding period, and funding agency. Summarize outcomes of previous funding from the Office of Research and Innovation (last five years, one page max.), including funding from the Research Council (Interdisciplinary Grants, Seed Grants and Grants-In-Aid). Include reviews from external funding applications where pertinent to project aims.
5. Project Budget: 1-page budget and 1-page detailed justification for up to $7,500 for an individual application or $10,000 for a joint application.