Colleagues--

Four of us (Michael Owen, Linda Freed, Marge Piechowski, and I) are presenting at SRA Vancouver on "Internal Matches for External Grants: Gathering Matching Funds in Tight Budgetary Environments."  As we all know, many grant competitions require applicants to provide cash and/or in-kind matches.  In preparation for our presentation, Michael Owen and I are surveying colleges and universities in Canada and the US to learn how different institutions find matching funds for grants.

We've asked for comments in lots of places; please tell us anything you think is relevant.  Email your completed survey directly to me.  (But remember--hitting the reply key may send it to everyone on the list.  That's okay with me, but it may not be what you want to do.)  We'll aggregate the responses and report the results at our presentation in Vancouver.  After our presentation, we'll post a summary to the list.

Kindly excuse cross-postings; we hope to elicit as large and varied a response as possible, so we will post to several lists.

Thanks for your assistance.

Bill Campbell
Director, Grants & Research
University of Wisconsin-River Falls, USA
715/425-3195
xxxxxx@uwrf.edu

SURVEY

1. Institution, location:

2. Contact person:

(If you would prefer that we not identify you or your institution publicly, please tell us; we'll respect your privacy.  But please include the information here so that we know whether you are a US or Canadian institution and whom to ask further questions.)

3. Total sponsored research grant and contract receipts per year:  $

For grant programs that require institutional matches:

4. How do you provide cash matches for grants?

i.      An institutional fund                   _____

ii.     Reallocation of existing resources      _____   (please comment on who initiated the reallocation and how matching funds came to be included)

iii.    Other   (e.g., endowment, sponsors)     _____   (please comment on how this came about)

5.      If you have an institutional fund of some sort, please answer the following questions:

i. How large is it?

ii. Where does the money come from?

iii. Who decides how the fund will be allocated and on what basis?

iv. Do you think that the existence of your institutional fund has a positive effect on the number or competitiveness of the grant proposals you submit?

v. Please add any examples or further information about institutional funds for matches that might help us understand what goes on at your institution or that illuminates this issue.

For grant programs that require industrial or external matches:

5. Who in your institution is responsible for obtaining industrial or external matches?

i. PI (researcher)                                 ____

ii. Office of Research Administration   ____

iii. Industrial Liaison Office                  ____

iv. External Relations or Dev't Office  ____

v. Other:       Please specify

Please comment on the effectiveness of this arrangement, how well it works, and its impact on building partnerships between your institution and external donors and building relationships between the research administration office(s) and faculty members.

6. With the multiplicity of programs which require matching funds, has your institution experienced greater or less difficulty in obtaining external matching funds?  Please explain.

International Programs

7. International programs (e.g., EC 5th Framework Program) often require matching funds. What are your experiences in accessing institutional, industrial or foundation, or government program funds to participate in these international research programs?

8. Open-ended comments:  Do you have any additional information (including statistics) or comments on the use of matching fund programs to facilitate research in our institutions (e.g., effectiveness of these programs in meeting their stated objectives - political, economic, bridge building between universities and industrial, not-for-profit, or government agencies, etc.)

Again, thanks for your participation.

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