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Home College of Communication and Fine Arts Resources Faculty Research Grants

Faculty Research Grants

The Faculty Research Grant (FRG) program is intended for faculty requiring pilot (or seed) funding to initiate or expand individual or team-based activities required to compete for external research grants to fund their proposed projects’ subsequent phase(s).  

Eligibility
The applicant (PI) must be a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in a department or school within CCFA. A faculty member will not be eligible for more than one FRG grant within a three-year period. Grant applications, unlike faculty recognition award nominations, will not roll forward to the next year. If your proposal is not selected for funding but you wish to be considered again the following year, you will need to resubmit your application materials on or before the subsequent year’s application deadline.

Application Materials
The main document should be submitted as one combined and compressed PDF and contain the following sections:

  1. FRG cover page
  2. Project narrative: Describe at a very high level what you (or your team) will do and why the intended outcomes of what you propose to do are significant. Please place the narrative on its own page. (Max length: five sentences)
  3. Research strategy: State the purpose or goal of the project, explain why serving that purpose or meeting that goal is needed (based on the literature and your prior research), list up to three specific aims (how you plan to meet your purpose/goal), and the significance (or impact) of realizing your purpose/goal (e.g., for your field, quality of life, etc.) (Max length: two pages, not counting references)
  4. Research dissemination plans: Explain how and where you will disseminate your results (e.g., conferences, publications). Collaborations with community partners should include CBPR-informed plans for dissemination of information. (Max length: one page)
  5. Timeline: List main project activities and associated timeframes. (Max length: one page)
  6. Budget: List main budget items and associated costs. A fully itemized budget is not required. Ineligible items include faculty extra and/or summer compensation, faculty course releases, and student tuition or stipends. (Max length: one page)
  7. If applicable, list of collaborators: List names of team members, professional positions, project roles, and areas of expertise. (Max length: two pages)
  8. Plans for future, external funding: Present clear details regarding potential sponsors, programs, application deadlines, collaborators (i.e., team members and areas of expertise), and plans for when and how you will initiate and conduct grant writing. (Max length: one page)

Attachments:

  1. PI’s CV (UofM or your own) or a biosketch on a currently accepted federal agency template.
  2. Letters of support from community, industry, or institutional partners, if applicable to your proposal. (If the project involves community partners, then you need a letter of support from each community partner.)

Application Deadline and Submission Instructions
Complete applications are due March 25th. Please email your materials or send a download link to Latoya Boyland at l.boyland@memphis.edu.

Decision Notification
Applicants will be informed of decisions regarding their proposals on April 1st or shortly after.

Project Period
Budgets will be available beginning July 1, 2025. All purchase requests must be completed by June 15th, 2026. Expenditures must be consistent with the financial policies of the University of Memphis and in keeping with the University's fiscal year-end closing schedule. In the case of default situations, such as the applicant's inability to complete the project, unexpended funds will revert to the CCFA. 

Reporting and Presentation Requirements
Report: FRG recipients will be required to submit a report summarizing their project’s outcomes, progress on results dissemination, progress on grant opportunity identification and grant application preparation, and any changes required to the project or plans due to new information or unforeseen circumstances. Reports are due August 31st.  

Presentation: Recipients will give a presentation based on their report at an annual event hosted by CCFA.

Intellectual Property Disclosures
Please consult the UofM policies on IP. ÁñÁ«Ö±²¥ Mike Schmidt at mschmidt@memphis.edu if you are uncertain where to begin.

Human Subjects Protections
Please request an IRB help kit from Mike Schmidt at mschmidt@memphis.edu for any research involving interviews, surveys, or use of secondary data. IRB approval (or exemption) is required prior to initiating participant recruitment or requesting access to secondary data (including publicly available data).

Review Criteria
Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (order does not indicate importance): (1) Likelihood that the proposed research will provide useful groundwork for an external grant application within two years of project completion. (2) How well the proposal identifies a knowledge gap or need and how well that gap or need is supported/justified. (3) The extent to which the proposed research is innovative (e.g., the proposed project is novel or offers a novel approach/method). (4) The feasibility of the proposed research (e.g., the proposed activities can be completed in one year, either with $2,500 or with $2,500 plus other listed support).