Hello all,

This is my first posting to this listserv, although I have learned a lot
from your cumulative wisdom!  I am looking for best practises involved
in awarding 'opportunity' seed funds from a central VP Research office.

At the University of Florida, the office of the Vice President for
Research disburses annually ~$1.25m as seed funds for interdisciplinary
research projects.  UF is a comprehensive university with all colleges
(medicine, engineering, fine arts, business, law, vetmed, liberal arts
etc.) on the same campus.  One of the criteria we use for eligibility is
that proposals should at a minimum be multi-investigator,
interdepartmental, and preferably multi-college.  In 2006 we had 190
applications (from enormously different disciplines!), and were able to
fund 18!  Of course, this has caused much distress among the faculty.

As part of our process to improve the program, I'd like to know the
following:
1.  do you have a centralized research incentive program that gives
awards to faculty?
2.  how much money is available in total?
3.  do you limit the size of the award?
4.  who reviews the proposals, and recommends awards?
5.  what are the criteria used to make the funding recommendations?
6.  do you track the awardees' performance?
7.  any other information you think would be useful.

You may respond directly to me at xxxxxx@rgp.ufl.edu
Thank you in advance.

Sobha

Sobha Jaishankar, Ph.D.
Asst. Vice President for Research,
University of Florida,
PO Box 115500
Gainesville, FL 32611
Phone: (352)-392-8247
Fax: (352)- 846-0491
Email: xxxxxx@rgp.ufl.edu

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