The FRG will feature a more flexible budget to provide support for categories including salary (academic year and summer), fringe benefits, tuition remission, travel, participant costs, materials and supplies, consultant services, computer services, and equipment or facility rental or user fees. Support can be requested in as many or as few categories as needed.

The average award size to an individual investigator will be approximately $25,000 and the average award size to a collaborative team will be approximately $50,000. It is understood that research costs vary widely between disciplines. Thus, for individual investigator awards, it is expected that some will be less than $25,000 while others will be significantly higher. Applicants are encouraged to assemble a budget that will appropriately support the proposed research. The expected term for most awards will be 1 year.

All continuing tenure-eligible or tenured faculty, including librarians holding the Master of Library and Information Science Degree or equivalent, are eligible to apply. Degree and rank at the date of application shall determine eligibility. Teaching, clinical professors and lecturers assigned research or scholarship as part of workload expectations are also eligible. The Committee encourages proposals from all disciplines and campuses at Miami University. Funds from the Committee on Faculty Research are not to be used toward the completion of any advanced degree on the part of the principal investigator.

• A faculty member may request support for only one individual investigator research project in a given year. A faculty member may request support for one collaborative research project each year in addition to the one individual investigator research project.
• A faculty member who has previously received Faculty Research grant(s) from CFR is immediately eligible for future awards, provided that he/she has submitted external proposal(s) for funding equal to or greater than the amount of the last CFR funds awarded, or has demonstrated achievement of the scholarship proposed in the prior Faculty Research grant(s).
• CFR funds are considered seed money for obtaining preliminary data or information that will lead to the submission of proposals to external funding sources. Proposals addressing new avenues of research and scholarship for the investigator, initiating new projects and pilot studies, or testing novel or controversial research/creative ideas are encouraged.

Proposals must include items 1-11 listed in the "Required Proposal Content" section below. Applications are submitted via InfoReady as four separate PDF files.

Files Required for Upload

• Proposal File
  • Comprising items 1-6 in the "Required Proposal Content" section below.
  • Items 1-5 must not exceed 5 pages in combined length.
  • Item 6 does not count toward the 5-page limit.
• Budget and Budget Justification File
  • Comprising items 7 and 8 in the "Required Proposal Content" section below.
• Biosketch File
  • Item 10 in the "Required Proposal Content" section below.
• Prior CFR Support and Current Funding File
  • Item 11 in the "Required Proposal Content" section below.

Required Proposal Content

1. Specific Aims
   1. A high-level overview of the discrete goals, or objectives, and/or research questions for the proposed research.
2. Background and Significance
   1. This sets the stage for the efforts described in the approach. The background will be reviewed by individuals who are not experts in your field. In using jargon or technical terms, it is likely necessary to define these terms to make the description accessible to a wide variety of reviewers. This section need not be written for the layperson but should provide enough clarity that anyone within your broad field or a closely related field could understand.
   2. The background should also present the motivation for pursuing the research.
3. Approach
   1. The details on how the research will be conducted. Preliminary data, if available, can be included to demonstrate feasibility. Methods described in the approach should address or answer questions raised by the specific aims.
4. Biographical Narrative
   1. A description of the qualifications of the faculty member(s) that enable the pursuit and completion of the proposed research
5. External Funding Plan
   1. Context for how a CFR grant would enable a subsequent successful application for external funding. The external funding plan should include:
      1. A timeline for submission of external proposals.
      2. A list of up to five external funding opportunities that will be pursued for external proposal submission.
         1. Opportunities should include the funding agency, name of grant mechanism, URL of program announcement (if available), the anticipated approximate date for proposal submission, estimated budget, and length of funding.
6. References Cited
   1. Literature or references cited should be included and do not count toward the 5- page limit.
7. Budget
   1. A detailed budget delineating the amounts of requested funds in each budget category.
   2. Budgets do not count toward the 5-page limit.
8. Budget Justification
   1. Each budget category included in the budget must have an accompanying section and description in the budget justification.
   2. The justification for each category should be a concise and clear description of why that particular budget category, and the amount requested, is necessary for the success of the proposed research.
   3. Budget justifications do not count toward the 5-page limit.
9. Letters of Support for Course Buyout
   1. Letters of support from the Department Chair and Dean are required for proposals requesting funds for a course buyout.
      1. Letters of support, if required, should be included within the submitted single PDF file
10. Biosketch
    1. Applicants will list scholarly or creative achievements (publications, presentations, exhibitions, performances, etc.) in the form of a 2-page curriculum vitae.
       1. For collaborative proposals, one biosketch should be included for each faculty member involved in the proposed research.
    2. Applicants should highlight those achievements that are most recent and/or most relevant to the proposed research.
    3. Biosketches do not count toward the 5-page limit.
11. Prior CFR Support and Current Funding
    1. List current external and internal funding. Applicants must list any prior CFR awards and provide a description of external funding applications and awards that resulted from each CFR award.
       1. Faculty who received a prior FRG must include statements identifying how prior FRG funds were used, how this advanced their research program, and how this enabled pursuit of external funding.
    2. Prior CFR support and current funding do not count toward the 5-page limit.

All FRG proposals will be submitted via InfoReady. Miami University users can log in to the InfoReady submission portal via Single Sign-On (SSO) beginning January 21, 2023.

Each application will be reviewed by three members of the reviewer pool. The reviewer pool will be organized by the Chair of CFR and be composed of members of CFR and may include Miami University faculty members who have received a CFR grant within the past four years.

The criteria for the evaluation of proposals include:

1. Intellectual merit
2. Technical or creative approach and originality
3. Impact on the field of scholarship
   1. Includes the degree of impact the research will have and the potential for success.
4. Impact on scholarship by the Faculty member(s)
5. Qualifications of the faculty member(s)
   1. For collaborative proposals, this includes history or evidence of collaboration.
6. Appropriateness of the proposed budget and justification of requested resources
7. Likelihood that a proposal will spur submission of high-quality proposal(s) for external funding.