Office of Research Strategic Initiatives Overview - Office of Research

Strategic Initiatives Overview

Faculty Fellows Program

Background and Objectives

Faculty experience multiple obligations in teaching, research, and mentoring. Large proposals require a significant investment of time and resources, including but not limited to: forging cross-disciplinary internal collaborations, building relationships with external partners, securing institutional support and investment, grant writing, and proposal assembly. Often, faculty are unable to pursue large grants because there is simply insufficient time to devote to proposal development. This limits both advancement of the individual, and the campus research mission.

National scale initiatives require a rapid and coordinated response in order to secure funding, resources, and identify potential external partners (e.g. national laboratories, industry specialists). Faculty members whose research interests overlap with these announcements may have only limited involvement or be unable to take part due to the same limiting factors noted above.

The Interdisciplinary Research Catalyst (IRC) program will facilitate, support, and enable faculty to pursue large scale interdisciplinary funding opportunities. The Office of Research will work in partnership with the Deans’ offices to support proposal development, and submission through the nomination of faculty fellows to the IRC program.

In addition to financial support, concentrated program development assistance will be made available, where requested and warranted, including aligning efforts from various support organizations, such as the Interdisciplinary Research Support team (proposal assembly), Office of Corporate Relations (industry partnership development), InnovationAccess (intellectual property protection and exploitation), Development and Alumni Relations (identifying private sponsors and research foundations).

Award Information

The Office of Research will award each proposal up to $25,000 per fellow on a matching basis with corresponding School or College Dean’s or Deans’ office. A faculty member can be jointly nominated by multiple Deans. Duration of the fellowship award is variable, depending on the project needs. It is expected most awards will range from 3 to 12 months. A maximum of two Fellows per School or College, per year are allowed.

Allowable uses of the funds include:

  • Direct support to the fellow in the form of one course buyout or summer salary equivalent. This option should only be advanced with support of the faculty member’s Department Chair and Dean.
  • Additional research support or development personnel. This option would allow the faculty member to continue their full teaching and research commitments while supporting a dedicated individual to focus on grant writing, partnership building, proposal assembly, and/or data generation.
  • Combination of the above modes as appropriate. Resources may also be utilized for travel, partnership building, or other proposal-related activities as appropriate.
  • For justified faculty exchanges or visits (10 days maximum), site visits, or hosting visitors at UC Davis.
  • Additional support mechanisms and activities might be acceptable if there is a clear justification and need for the development of a particular funding opportunity.

Funding Areas: All interdisciplinary research fields.

Eligibility: Outstanding faculty members will be nominated by the Dean of their respective School or College in consultation with the Office of Research.

Deadline: Applications accepted at any time.

Contact

For more information, please contact the program manager at: [email protected], or visit the InfoReady competition website for full RFP and submissions.