Research Support Grants

This internal grant program is designed to enhance UK's research enterprise by assisting investigators in accelerating their research programs.

The program will, among other things, support pilot studies needed to develop preliminary data to enhance the competitiveness of extramural research grant applications. These grants may also be used for minor equipment and travel associated with development of a research project or scholarly activity. Generally, investigators who have significant amounts of research funding or start-up funds are not eligible for these grants.

There are no deadlines and applications will be accepted any time. Awards will generally be from $2,500 to $20,000 and costs should be commensurate with the proposed work. Awards will be for one year only from the date of award. There is no limit on the number of applications that may be submitted; however, no more than one application per faculty member will be funded in a 12-month period.

This program will not support faculty salaries, graduate assistantships, graduate tuition and fees, postdoctoral fellows, travel to meetings, consultant costs, equipment over $5,000, routine office equipment, or laptop computers. Acceptable items would include research assistants working on a project and equipment under $5,000.

Proposal Format:

• Cover sheet.
  
  
• 9 page proposal to include:

  Abstract of proposed work (250 words). External funding agency application format is acceptable.

  Explain what you are going to do with support.

  Address how proposed work will advance your research and identify the external funding opportunities for which pilot data will be used, if applicable.

  Budget and budget justification

  List all current funding (internal and external)

• Brief formatted biographical sketch using a format suitable for an appropriate agency (NIH, NSF, DOE, etc.). See http://grants1.nih.gov/grants/funding/phs398/biosketchsample.doc for an NIH sample and note that completing the box for an eRA Commons name is optional (Bio sketch is not part of the 9 page limit.).
  
  

• All applicable requirements such as IRB, IACUC, Biosafety, etc. and date approval will be sought.

Alternate application format: Researchers who have applied to an external sponsor and were not funded may request funds to be used to make the proposal competitive for a resubmission. In this case, the researcher can forward the original application, the critique and a brief (two pages) response to the Research Support Grant program for consideration. The response must address how the support from this grant would be used to respond to the external grant critique.

Submission Procedure: In order to assure approval has been obtained from the Department Chair and the College Administration or Center & Institute Director, investigators are to email their completed application to their Chair or Director, with their name and the research support program name in the subject line.  The Chair will forward it to the Associate Dean for Research.  The ADR or Director will submit the proposal to gotgrants@uky.edu.  In order to provide the Vice President for Research with additional information on which to base a funding decision, the Chairs, Directors and ADRs are invited to provide confidential comments on the credentials of the applicant, the importance of the research plan to the applicant’s research program and how the proposal fits with their department or college Strategic Plan.

Review Procedure:  Applications will be reviewed by three peer faculty members appointed by the Vice President for Research. Generally reviews will take no more than 30 days with notification of application status relayed to the applicant shortly thereafter. The reviewers will consider if the proposal is feasible, is valuable research and has a good possibility of receiving favorable status with external funding sources. See Research Support Grant Proposal Review.

Post-award Requirements:  Funding recipients must submit a final report within 90 days of award expiration. Final reports are limited to two pages. Failure to submit a final report may preclude future awards. In addition, support from this program should be acknowledged in all publications resulting from the funded researchand this office should be notified if support through this program leads to funding or publications any time in the future.