Internal Grants

Competitive Grants

Summer Research Fellowship

Program Deadline: All proposals must be submitted electronically by 5:00 PM, September 26, 2008.

THIS WILL BE THE FINAL COMPETITION FOR SUMMER RESEARCH FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM. Future SRF and FUR funds will support the new STEP program.

PURPOSE
The Summer Research Fellowship (SRF) provides research support as a seed grant or bridge funding to faculty during the summer in order to pursue promising research.

ELIGIBILITY
All tenured and tenure-track members of the SIUE faculty are eligible for this final SRF competition. A researcher can compete for and receive a Summer Research Fellowship and have other research support (both internal and external), during the same year as long as that other research support does not overlap with or compromise the SRF effort commitment.

AWARDS
SRF awards are individual grants. Awards may not be divided among co-investigators. If a project involves multiple investigators, each must submit their own SRF proposal.

Up to 30 research fellowships, each in the amount of $4,000 will be awarded to faculty members who agree to devote 33% effort during the summer term to their proposed research projects. Recipients may accept other remunerative assignments during the term as long as the recipient does not exceed 100% effort during the summer term. Faculty members may not have summer research support in excess of one month’s salary from any other external and/or internal source of funding.

AWARD CONDITIONS
As a condition of the award, recipients of a SRF must submit a proposal for external funding through the Graduate School’s Office of Research and Projects within one year after receipt of the SRF award. Failure to submit a proposal for external funding will make the researcher ineligible for further Graduate School support. SRF recipients must remain on a continuing faculty appointment throughout the academic year following the summer of the award.

DEFINITION OF RESEARCH
Research is broadly defined as all creative, critical, scholarly, and/or empirical activity that expands, clarifies, reorganizes, or develops knowledge or artistic perception. This definition of research includes the demonstration, implementation, application, and dissemination of research results and those grants designated as research by the granting agency. Studies of curriculum and of pedagogy that are generalizable and that have implications that extend beyond the researcher's class may be considered research.

INELIGIBLE ACTIVITIES
Proposals ineligible for a Summer Research Fellowship include: DEPARTMENTAL CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT - activities such as curriculum development, preparation of curriculum materials, curriculum revisions, student interest surveys; FACULTY DEVELOPMENT- includes activities such as learning an established technique, a language or methodology; thesis or dissertation research; INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH - activities such as studies related directly to the operation of the University; and PUBLIC SERVICE AND CONSULTING ACTIVITIES.

APPLICATION PROCEDURES
The proposal must be submitted electronically (email PDF) to the Graduate School by 5:00 pm, Friday, September 26, 2008. Recipients of the SRF will be announced by November 2008. Funds must be expended by June 30, 2009.

PROPOSAL FORMAT (required--format must be followed)

1. COVER PAGE
   Download and complete the cover page. Be sure to obtain all applicable signatures (and scan Cover Page as part of the entire proposal) before submission to the Graduate School.
   
2. CV. Please attach your CV (three page limit).
   
3. PRIOR FUNDING
   Please use the above link to download and complete the Prior Funding Form. If the prospective Project Director (PD) or Co-PD has received support from the Graduate School's SRF or FUR programs in the past three years, briefly describe the earlier project(s) and its outcomes in sufficient detail to permit a reviewer to make an informed conclusion regarding the value of the results achieved. Include the title of the project, amount, period of support, a summary of the results of the completed work, a list of related publications and presentations, and a list of external grant proposals submitted (do not submit copies of publications or grant proposals). If you have not received any SRF or FUR funding in the past three years, please indicate that by typing "N/A" in the project summary portion of the form.
   
4. PROPOSAL NARRATIVE
   Each proposal must consist of a narrative no longer than ten double-spaced pages, not including bibliography and appendices, describing the endeavor to be undertaken during the grant period. Since these proposals will be reviewed by a cross-disciplinary review panel, great care should be taken in preparing a narrative that is understandable to the non-specialist. The proposal must be prepared using the following format. Subheadings within the proposal should be clearly labeled.

1. Introduction and Background
   Provide a brief overview of your research project or creative activity, including a clear statement of the problem and the objectives of the proposed project. Describe, in detail, the background to the project, including an appropriate review of the literature. Clearly explain the significance of the research or creative activity to the discipline.

   1. Procedures or Project Plan
      Provide a detailed description of the methodology used to conduct this research or creative activity. The description should reflect the nature of the project. Research projects that are experimental in nature should clearly describe the design of the experiment and the methods for acquiring and analyzing data. Non experimental projects, such as those in the humanities and fine arts, may wish to describe the works to be examined, research sources, (library collections, etc.) and an appropriate plan for carrying out their scholarly activity.
   2. Timeline and Anticipated Results
      All projects should include a tentative timetable and a description of the anticipated results. The narrative should also describe how the results of your research fits into any larger long-term research plan, including the identification of possible sources of external support for the continuation of the project.
   3. Bibliography
      Include a short, selected bibliography (one-page maximum) showing your familiarity with pertinent literature. (For some creative projects, this type of bibliography may not be applicable. Please indicate if this is so.)
   4. Appendices
      Include additional information only if it is necessary to the reviewers' understanding of the research or of previous related research.
      

EVALUATION CRITERIA
The primary criterion is merit of the proposal. Using this criterion, each review panel will be asked to evaluate each proposal based on the following:

1. The originality/creativity and significance of the proposed research (35%);

2. The clarity and appropriateness of the research design and procedure (35%);

3. The feasibility of the project as proposed (15%);

4. As appropriate, the researcher's prior publication and external funding record, the current research proposal’s potential for external funding, and/or the updated summary of the outcomes of previous internal awards (15%).

EVALUATION PROCESS
Each proposal will be assigned to one of four review panels for evaluation. Each review panel is composed of members of the R&D committee and other faculty. All proposals and the recommendations of the review panels will be reviewed by the Research and Development Committee based on the above criteria. The top proposals will be recommended to the Dean of the Graduate School for funding. A summary critique of each submitted proposal will be prepared by the review panels and will be forwarded to the researcher who submitted the proposal.

REPORTING
A detailed report on the research project is required by November 1 (or the nearest working day thereafter) after completion of the summer of research funded by the Summer Research Fellowship (use the Final Report Form link below). Final Reports are submitted to Teri Gulledge (tgulled@siue.edu) in the Graduate School's Office of Research and Projects.

SRF Final Report Form

TIMETABLE for Summer Research Fellowship for Summer 2008 (FY2008) Awards