Eligibility Requirements

All full-time faculty members are eligible and encouraged to apply for GUR grants. Preference will be given to faculty who have not received awards previously, however, there is no restriction on the number of awards an individual may receive over the years. Applicants who received a GUR between June 2021 and June 2023 are ineligible to submit this cycle. Review of proposals from prior GUR awardees will include consideration of performance on their past GUR award(s). Applicants who failed to complete previous GUR final reports will not be considered for a GUR award.

GUR Deadlines

Proposal Evaluation

Each proposal will be reviewed by one Faculty Senate Research Committee member and two UD faculty disciplinary experts. Given the diversity in backgrounds of committee members, applicants must prepare applications that are understandable by a broad audience. Proposals failing to follow submission guidelines may be returned without review. Due to an increase in the number of applicants last year, the funding rate of proposals was 26%.

Selection for funding will be based on:

1. Significance of the Problem (15 points): Does the scholarship clearly address an unmet need of high importance, or is the scholarship extraordinarily novel or a creative innovation?
2. Intellectual Merit of Approach/Adequacy of the Plan for Scholarship (30 points): Are the research plans and methods well developed, and are the activities clearly defined? Is there high alignment of the proposed activities with the identified significance of the problem?
3. Student Involvement (10 points): Does the plan for scholarship include actionable steps for student involvement? Is a well-developed training plan included?
4. Qualifications of the PI (10 points): Is the proposed research aligned with PI’s background, training, and/or previous work? Is it clear how the proposed research will advance the PI’s professional career?
5. Justification of Resources (15 points): Is the budget well defined and justified based on the allowable budget items and research plan? Is the timeline clear and reasonable?
6. Likelihood of Future Sponsorship (10 points): Does the proposal clearly articulate future resource streams that could sustain the effort beyond the grant period?
7. PI Professional Rank (10 points)

The Faculty Senate Research Committee consists of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Innovation (or Research Office designee) and nine faculty members (two that serve as co-Chairs).

Proposal

PROJECT BUDGET

GUR proposals may request up to $15,000. Proposals with insufficiently detailed budgets or budget justifications may be returned without review. GUR proposals do not require matching funds from the PI’s College and/or Department. However, matching funds may be included when applicable and when pre-approved by the Chair and Dean.

BUDGETING GUIDELINES

Personnel: FPI faculty summer salary up to $5,000 or 1/9th salary, whichever is less, is allowable. Matching faculty academic time is permitted though not required. Inclusion of graduate and undergraduate research assistants (RAs) is encouraged. Research assistants may be paid hourly or on stipends. Matching student RA stipends related to the proposed research are permitted.

Fringe Benefits: Fringe benefit costs are required for all personnel categories other than PI summer salary.

Direct Research Expenses: Expense categories such as equipment, participant support costs, and other direct research costs typically allowed by federal sponsors are permitted. Travel for proposed scholarship may be supported if it is well justified within the scope of the project.

Unallowable Expenses: Facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, graduate tuition, and PI fringe benefits are unallowable on GUR awards. If the graduate RA is supported on a stipend from this award, a financial plan for covering required graduate tuition costs should be articulated in the budget justification

The committee will consider a wide variety of specific budgetary requests if the budget items are adequately justified. A budget justification is required in the application. Instructions for the budget justification can be found in the GUR Proposal Template. The committee may choose to award a GUR grant at a level of funding different from the amount requested.

All budgets should be prepared with the understanding that budget changes exceeding 25% of the total award and re-budgeting of funds into categories not included in the original budget must be approved by the Research Office. See the GUR Post-Award section for more information.

NOTE: For tax purposes, stipends for principal investigators on GUR grants are fellowships rather than wages and are therefore exempt from FICA, but no fellowship is exempt from Federal and State payroll taxes. It is assumed that a faculty member receiving fellowship funds will not have any qualified educational expenses and appropriate payroll taxes will be subject to withholding at the time of disbursement.

PROJECT DURATION

GUR grants are awarded for up to two years with periods of performance commencing June 1. No-cost extensions may be granted up to three times only when circumstances warrant. No-cost extension instructions are in the GUR Post-Award section.

PROPOSAL COMPONENTS & FORMATTING

Submit the GUR proposal using the GUR Proposal Template. All components should be single-spaced using 11-pt Arial font with one-inch margins.

Executive Summary: The executive summary is a one-page section consisting of three sub-sections: an overview, a statement on the significance of the problem, and a statement on the intellectual merit of the approach/plan for scholarship. The overview should include a description of the scope of the proposed activity. The statement on the significance of the problem should describe how the scholarship addresses an unmet need of high importance or is an extraordinarily novel or creative innovation. The statement on the intellectual merit should concisely summarize the plan or methods and activities and how they are clearly aligned with the significance of the problem.

Project Description: A three-page section providing a statement of work including a plan for scholarship with clear achievable goals and details about the expected significance of the scholarship resulting from project activities. The project’s intellectual merit/plan for scholarship and significance of the problem should be fully described in the Project Description. Include any relevant figures or tables. Additionally, investigators should specifically include: a training plan for student involvement and explain how the proposed work will lead to future support and/or opportunities. The entire Project Description should be clear to a reviewer having an advanced educational background within an allied discipline, but who may not be an expert in the field.

Timeline: A one-half page description, infographic, or chart detailing a clear and reasonable timeline for the proposed activities. Include dates, tasks, dependencies and milestones as applicable.

Additional information such as References, Budget Justification, PI and co-PI NSF-style Biosketches, and PI and co-PI NSF-style Current & Pending Support should be combined with the proposal template and submitted as one PDF document. Incomplete applications will be returned without review.

Submission

PROCEDURES FOR SELECTED PROPOSALS

FACULTY PROCEDURES

1. When a proposal is selected for funding, the faculty member should reach out to their applicable department administrator or grant analyst so that a record in UD's Grant Management System, PeopleSoft (PS), can be initiated.
2. Faculty should provide the administrator with a single PDF copy of the full proposal submission.
3. Faculty should work with the Department Administrator to develop a more detailed budget as is required for PeopleSoft input. A detailed budget template can be found on the Research Office website.

ADMINISTRATOR PROCEDURES

Departmental administrator or grant analyst guidance for using UD’s Grants Management System is available on the Research Office website and by contacting the department’s assigned Contract & Grant Specialist in the Research Office.

GUR PEOPLESOFT PROPOSAL INSTRUCTIONS

1. Sponsor ID: 0921 – General University Research
2. Purpose: RSCH7 – University Sponsored Research
3. Budget Considerations:
   • Requested amount up to $15,000 entered as direct costs
   • Applicable cost-share entered from department and/or College (not required)
   • Faculty Summer Salary: Up to $5,000 for the Principal Investigator budgeted under account code 120800 and budget category PSTDOC so that fringe benefits are not incurred.
   • Graduate student tuition is prohibited.
   • F&A Pricing Setup: F&A costs are not permissible on GUR awards.
     • Choose “Industrial Research On-Campus” for the rate type; overwrite the F&A rate to zero.
     • Pricing Method should be FIXED
   • Under the Attachments tab, upload a single PDF copy of the full proposal submission using the following naming convention: ProposalID_Other
   • Routing of FIN Proposal Approval Summary (PAS) webform should include PI, Department Chair, College Dean and OSP per standard procedures.

FACULTY S-CONTRACT PROCEDURES

If you choose to receive a stipend from your recently awarded grant, the S-Contract that is processed by your department should identify the payment by using account code 120800 and the earnings code PFF. This account code will identify the stipend as a fellowship, which is not subject to FICA taxes, TIAA pension contributions, or university matching of such contributions. In addition, the account will not be charged fringe benefits on the stipend. The comments section of the S-Contract should include the phrase “Stipend Award from GUR”. University policy limits a summer payment such as this to 1/9th of your regular salary.

PROPOSAL REVIEW RUBRIC

General University Research grants are awards based on eligibility and merit. Proposals are reviewed for eligibility by the Research Office and evaluations of merit and award recommendations are made by the Faculty Senate Research Committeebased on the rubric below.

Score is out of 100 possible points.

Terms and Conditions

GUR grants are made with the following understood commitments from the PI.

1. Acceptance signifies intent to continue employment with the University for the duration of the proposal period.
2. The University's patent, copyright, and publication policies, found in the Faculty Handbook, apply to research conducted under a GUR grant. GUR research must comply with the University Research, Sponsored Programs, Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Policies.
3. If the proposed research includes human subjects or private identifiable data, and/or the use of non-human vertebrate animals, the research protocol must be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee respectively prior to expending any GUR funds. If IRB or IACUC approval is not granted for the study, the award will be withdrawn.
4. The University exercises no direction or supervision over the details of the research or activities to be performed but does require adherence to the original objectives and purposes of the grant. It also requires that a final report on the proposal be submitted to the Research Office no later than ninety (90) days after the end date of the award. Final reports can be submitted using the UD Internal Seed Grant Request form.
5. Publications or other scholarly works directly resulting from a GUR grant must include an acknowledgment that the research was carried out with the support of the University of Delaware General University Research grant program. Each grantee is required to furnish one copy of any resulting papers, books, or other publications to the University Library through the Research Office (researchdev@udel.edu).
6. Unless arrangements to the contrary have been included in the proposal as accepted, financial income derived from the project will be returned to the University, up to the amount of the award. This is not meant to conflict with university policies on patents, copyrights, and publications.

GUR Post Award

AWARD SELECTION

General University Research grants are awards based on eligibility and merit. Proposals are reviewed for eligibility by the Research Office and evaluations of merit and award recommendations are made by the Faculty Senate Research Committee. The Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Innovation makes the final award decision.

POST AWARD ADMINISTRATION

Awarded proposals will be assigned an award number and purpose code for expenditures. Only successful awards should be entered into PeopleSoft by PI’s department administrator for tracking and reporting purposes. Correspondence and post-award reporting should include the award number and purpose code. All proposals funded at a level different than proposed, must provide a revised budget before the purpose code is established.

The UD Internal Seed Grant Request form should be used for re-budgeting and no-cost extension requests and for submitting the required final report.

Rebudgeting: Budget changes exceeding 25% of the total award and re-budgeting of funds into categories not in the original budget require prior approval by the Research Office.
No-cost Extensions: Requests for no-cost extensions must be submitted no sooner than 90 days and at least 30 days prior to the award end date. Requests should include the reason for, and the duration of, the extension. A maximum of one year is allowed per NCE request and total requests are limited to three per award.
Final Reports: A final report for the award must be submitted to the Research Office no later than ninety (90) days after the end date of the grant. Final reports are to be submitted using the University of Delaware Seed Grant Program Final Report.

Eligibility Requirements

UDRF-SI grants have traditionally been primarily in the fields of engineering and the natural and physical sciences. However, any proposals using scientific methods geared towards improving the PI’s research competitiveness for future external funding is eligible. Teams must include only one untenured, tenure-track faculty Principal Investigator (PI) and at least one tenured faculty Co-PI.strong>

Continuing Track and Research Track faculty are not eligible to be PI or lead Co-PI, but may be a second Co-PI. Postdoctoral Research Scientists and Primarily Staff appointments are not eligible to participate as PI or Co-PI. All PIs and Co-PIs must be UD employees. New faculty hires are ineligible to apply to the UDRF-SI competition as PI or Co-PI if their work start date is after the submission deadline.

Previous UDRF-SI grant PI recipients are ineligible. Collaborating tenured faculty who have received UDRF and/or UDRF-SI funding in the past are eligible to again participate as Co-PI. Faculty may apply to both the UDRF and UDRF-SI programs in a calendar year. However, only one award may be received per calendar year.

Proposal Evaluation

Furthering the professional development of the recipients and advancing the University’s research prominence are the UDRF-SI’s primary objectives. Selection for funding will be based on:

• Intellectual Merit (40%): Does the proposed work significantly advance domain knowledge, address one of the University’s strategic pillars, and enhance the PI’s research competitiveness?
• Collaboration (20%): Does the collaboration press the PIs into a novel research area requiring the expertise of both collaborators?
• Mentoring Plan (10%): Does the proposal include a substantive plan for mentoring the untenured PI?
• Feasibility (10%): Likelihood of completion within one to two years.
• Likelihood of Future External Funding (20%): Does the proposal articulate clear achievable goals which will likely attract new external funding?

Proposal

PROJECT BUDGET

UDRF-SI proposals may request up to $55,000 of which $35,000 is sponsor direct funding with an additional $10,000 in match funds from the PI’s Dean and $10,000 from the Provost’s Office. All UDRF-SI proposals require matching funds from the PI’s College and Provost’s Office.

BUDGETING GUIDELINES

• Personnel: Graduate research assistant (RA) stipends, hourly wage, and other positions providing technical assistance are allowable (not PI or Co-PIs).
• Fringe Benefits: Fringe benefit costs are required for all personnel categories budgeted.
• Direct research expenses: Equipment, travel, participant support costs, and supplies and other direct research costs typically allowed by federal sponsors are allowed.
• Unallowable budget categories: Facilities and administrative (F&A) costs, graduate tuition, and faculty salary are not allowed.

All budgets should be prepared with the understanding that budget changes exceeding 25% of the total award and re-budgeting of funds into categories not in the original budget are subject to prior approval by the Research Office. See the UDRF-SI Post-Award section below for more information.

PROPOSAL DURATION

UDRF Strategic Initiatives grants are awarded for up to two years with periods of performance commencing from the project start date. No-Cost Extensions may be granted up to three times only when circumstances warrant. Instructions can be found in the UDRF-SI Post-Award section.

PROPOSAL COMPONENTS & FORMATTING

Submit the UDRF-SI proposal using the UDRF-SI Proposal Template . All components should be single-spaced using 11-pt Arial font with one-inch margins. Additional information such as References, Budget Justifications, CVs, and Current & Pending Support should be combined with the proposal template and submitted as a single PDF document. Incomplete applications will be returned without review.

Executive Summary: A one-page section consisting of three sub-sections:

• Overview: The Overview should include a description of the scientific scope of the proposal and potential future sources of external funding.
• A statement of Intellectual Merit: This section should describe how the project will advance knowledge and understanding in the domain.
• A statement of Broader Impacts: This section should describe how the project will benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes.

Project Description: A three-page section providing a statement of work including clear, achievable goals within the proposed timeline and expected significance of the proposed research. The entire Project Description should be clear to a reviewer with a technical/scientific background, but who may not be an expert in the field. The project’s intellectual merit and broader impacts should be fully described in the Project Description (although they do not need to be in separate labeled sections). Additionally:

• PIs must include a timeline for the project and should include any relevant figures or tables.
• Investigators should specifically address approaches for seeking external funding.
• The Project Description must include a brief description of a Mentoring Plan for mentoring of the untenured, tenure- track PI by the tenured faculty Co-PI.

Submission

1. A letter of intent (LOI) to submit a full proposal must be submitted by the deadline noted above using an online application. Letters of intent include:
   • the full names, departmental affiliation, and e-mail addresses of the PI and Co-PI(s);
   • a proposed title; and,
   • a short (<250 word) abstract of the proposed work.
   Only proposals submitting an LOI will be considered for the competition.
2. Lead PIs submitting an LOI will receive subsequent instructions on submission of a full proposal.
3. The UDRF-SI Proposal Template must be used for formatting the proposal which is submitted as a single PDF document. Proposals must include:
   • Title
   • Executive Summary (1 page maximum)
   • Project Description (3 pages, maximum)
   • References
   • Budget
   • Budget Justification (1 page maximum)
   • Three-page biosketches for each PI and Co-PI (NSF -style preferred); and
   • Current & Pending Support (C&P) for each PI and Co-PI (departmental start-up funds are excluded from the C&P).
4. Applications must be submitted in the online application portal by 11:59 PM on the submission deadlines noted above.

Terms & Conditions

UDRF-SI grants are made with the following understood commitments from the PI.

1. Acceptance signifies intent to continue employment at the University for the duration of the proposal period.
2. The University's patent, copyright, and publication policies, which can be found in the Faculty Handbook, apply to research conducted under a UDRF-SI grant. UDRF-SI research must comply with the University Research, Sponsored Programs, Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Policies.
3. If the proposed research includes human subjects or private identifiable data, and/or the use of non- human vertebrate animals, the research protocol must be reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board or the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee respectively prior to the expenditures of any UDRF-SI funds.
4. The University exercises no direction or supervision over the details of the research or activities to be performed, but it does require adherence to the original objectives and purposes of the grant. It also requires that a report on the proposal be submitted to the Research Office no later than ninety (90) days after the end date of the grant using the UD Internal Seed Grant Final Report form.
5. Unless arrangements to the contrary have been included in the proposal as accepted, financial income derived from the project will be returned to the University, up to the amount of the award. This is not meant to conflict with University policies on patents, copyrights, and publications.
6. Every publication directly resulting from a research grant must include an acknowledgment that the research was carried out with the support of the University of Delaware Research Foundation. Each grantee is required to furnish one copy of any resulting papers, books, or other publications to the University Library through the Research Office (researchdev@udel.edu).

Post Award

AWARD ADMINISTRATION

Awarded grants will be assigned an award and purpose code for proposal expenditures. Successful awards must be entered into PeopleSoft by the PI’s departmental administrator for tracking and reporting purposes. Future correspondence and post-award reporting should include the award number and purpose code. All proposals funded at a level different than proposed must provide a revised budget before the purpose code may be established.

REBUDGETING REQUESTS

Budget changes exceeding 25% of the total award and re-budgeting of funds into categories not in the original budget (e.g., equipment, foreign travel) are subject to prior approval by the Research Office. Requests for re-budgeting must be submitted on the UD Internal Seed Grant Request form.

NO-COST EXTENSION REQUESTS

Requests for no-cost extensions must be submitted to the Research Office using the UD Internal Seed Grant Request form no sooner than 90 days and at least 30 days prior to the award end date. Requests should include the reason for and the duration of the extension.  NCE requests are limited to three per award.

FINAL REPORT

A final report for the award must be submitted to the Research Office using the Seed Grant Final Report Form no later than ninety (90) days after the end date of the grant. The Seed Grant Final Report Form may be found here.