The University Research Grants Committee (URGC), a faculty committee administered by The Graduate School, reviews proposals from faculty for support of research and creative arts projects.

 

University Research Grants are intended to support the research and creative projects of faculty in fields for which there is little or no external funding or start-up money available. Awards are restricted to faculty in Divisions II and III (social sciences and humanities) of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the School of Communication, the School of Education and Social Policy, and the School of Music. Regular full-time faculty, including tenure-track or tenured faculty at the assistant professor level or above, professional library staff members, and Artists in Residence or lecturers with continuing appointments are eligible to apply. Note: Regular faculty is defined as voting members of the faculty of the school in which they hold their appointment. Specifically excluded from eligibility are emeritus faculty, part-time adjunct faculty, research faculty, visiting faculty, contributed service faculty, faculty whose contracts will not be renewed for the following year, and faculty who plan to resign their appointments or retire. Recipients are limited to one research grant per year.

 

For individual projects, the highest priority is the provision of seed money for new projects by new faculty in all ranks, but especially junior faculty. Awards are also granted to more established senior faculty in fields for which there is little or no external funding available. Requests for supplemental funding for ongoing projects will not be disallowed, but they will receive a lower priority than new projects; these requests require more elaborate budgetary justification than requests for start-up money. The maximum award for individual projects is $5,000.

 

Publication subventions provide support for certain production costs that publishers are generally unable to cover.  Subventions are available to eligible faculty who have already secured a formal publication contract for a book or journal article. The policy on royalty refunds is that the author agrees to allow the University Research Grants Committee to recoup its subvention from any royalties received after publication. Priority will be given to tenure-track assistant professors as this group of faculty has the greatest need to publish with the least amount of university resources. The second priority is to associate professors and lecturers with continuing appointments. Last priority is to senior faculty. The maximum award is $5,000. The Dean of The Graduate School reviews proposals for subventions.

 

Please see application instructions for deadlines and additional information.