Smeal Small Research Grants Program

Purpose

The purpose of the Smeal Small Research Grants Program is to stimulate and support the research efforts of Smeal College faculty and doctoral candidates by providing small grants to support incidental expenses associated with research projects.  Grants are typically in the range of $100-$1,000 for doctoral candidates, but the specifics of the program will be contained in the email announcement to Smeal PhD students.

Eligibility Criteria

All Smeal doctoral students who have passed the candidacy examination are eligible for the Smeal Small Research Grants Program.

Use of Funds

The Smeal Small Research Grants Program expects funds to be used for expenses directly related to the proposed research.  The proposer should justify the dollar amount that is requested.  These grants may be used to pay for direct costs, such as payments to subjects, purchase of databases, survey costs, specialized software or special-purpose equipment.  Funds cannot be used for conference registration, travel or salary supplement.  However, travel for data collection may be acceptable.  Requests for database subscriptions will be forwarded to the Database Committee for review.  Database subscriptions are more likely to be supported if there are multiple users or multiple uses for the database.

Funding Criteria

The Competitive Research Funding Committee rank-orders the requests and the Dean's Office determines the actual awards.  The expedited review process will consider the following elements:

a. Quality of proposed research,       
b. Shared support from the department or other sources,
c. Clear identification/documentation of the financial need, and       
d. Potential for generating additional external funding.

Proposal Content

Proposals should at most be a single page (one-sided). The description of need should be very clear to an evaluator outside your field.  The description should include a short justification and an itemized list of estimated costs, identification of your faculty adviser(s), and identification of the amount and source of any shared support.

Application Deadline

The deadline for proposal submission will be announced in early fall and early spring.  Annual funding is not guaranteed.  Funds made available under this program will typically be distributed in October for the fall program, and March for the spring program.  Funding requests will continue to be accepted beyond the deadline, but funding decisions will be postponed to the next cycle and available funding not allotted will carry forward to the next funding cycle.

Reporting Requirements

Each recipient of a Smeal Small Research Grant award should include acknowledgment of the award in any research publications that result from the work.