Competitive Research and Project Grants
APPLICATION GUIDELINES
Eligible activities: Research, special student projects (such as competition teams)
Deadlines: December 31 and (if funds remain after the December call) May 31. Decisions expected before January 30 and June 30.
Approximate total funding available annually : $13,500, for three awards of up to $4,500 each.
Checklist of required elements:
- Approx. 750-1000-word description of project (not including the bibliography, which is an expected component of the package):
participants, background, justification, expected results/contribution, deliverables, timeline. - Full budget and justification. The Friends share may not exceed $4,500; cost-sharing with other sources is welcome, but all budget requirements and funding sources should be identified, whether certain, or applied for, or intending to apply for.
- Brief (~2 pp) CVs for the main participants, including contact information (especially e-mail address), current GPA, publications, conference presentations, and professional society activities.
- Substantive letter of support from an ITS faculty member(s), for both the proposal and the proposer(s), including an assessment of the likely success of the proposed project, and attesting that s/he/they will mentor the proposers on the project.
Provide your applications to Annemarie Schaaf, aschaaf@ucdavis.edu.
Applications should be electronic, but ALL IN ONE WORD FILE, and logically labeled: "CRPG proposal [proposer's name].doc". Proposals not meeting the above requirements will be returned for compliance or disqualified.
Notes: This is not intended to substitute for existing funding under faculty research grants, and preference will be given to projects that are not already funded in that way. Otherwise unfunded extensions of faculty research grants are permissible. We reserve the right to make fewer than three awards in a year, and/or to award less than the $4,500 maximum for a single project. Additional factors in the decision (besides the obvious one of merit of the proposal) include academic standing of the proposers, past research productivity of the proposers, and programmatic diversity.
Answers to Previously Asked Questions
How many applications are we allowed to submit?
Being involved in more than one application is fine, though we would not expect a given person to be the lead or play a dominant role for more than one application (to prevent multiple "scattershot" apps from people just trying to "game" the system to maximize their chances of funding). Unusual situations can be considered on a case-by-case basis.
Must all participants be graduate students in ITS?
As long the project has a clear transportation flavor, and key participants are graduate students in transportation-related programs at UCD, not all participants have to be ITS-affiliated at the outset. However, (a) justification for the involvement of any non-student participants (other than faculty/staff of UCD in a mentoring role), and students in non-transportation-related programs, needs to be provided, and (b) it's expected that students in transportation-related programs would "affiliate" with ITS (i.e. be counted as a transportation student, be on the ITSstudents listserv, etc.) after the fact if not before.
What can the money be used for?
The budget can be used for any reasonable research/project-related expenses, including salary, research-related travel (normally not conference travel, since there is another fund for that), supplies, data collection, etc. It would not normally be used for fees/tuition, if other funds (such as block grant monies) are available for that.
Are there any reporting requirements?
If your award involves travel, you will need to fill out a travel worksheet after the trip occurs, and turn it in to Roberta Devine (rjdevine@ucdavis.edu) together with your original receipts (as with all travel, check in with Roberta in advance of the trip as well). Original receipts for the trip should include (if applicable) an airline itinerary showing payment. Similarly, to receive reimbursement for purchases, check with Roberta in advance and turn in original receipts & a final breakdown of expenses afterwards.
At the conclusion of the project, you will be expected to provide a brief report to Annemarie Schaaf (aschaaf@ucdavis.edu) outlining how the funds were used. You'll also be expected to provide information on project progress and findings, as needed, for the news dissemination activities of ITS-Davis (e.g. e-news)
Can the same person be funded more than once?
We would not expect to make full awards to the same person or group of people more than once. On an exceptional basis, we will entertain requests for a single limited extension of an initial budget. However, (a) we would expect strong and persuasive justification for such a request; (b) requests that appear to be due to foreseeable budget overruns (i.e. initial "low-balling") will not be granted; and (c) we would not consider such an extension without a tangible deliverable from the initial grant (e.g. conference presentation, research report).