At UMAB several years ago the State of Maryland made an allocation of funds
to be used in promoting and supporting pilot and feasibility studies to help
junior faculty become established and the funds were to be used for bridging
when faculty had a hiatus in external funding.  In addition, the funds could
be used to purchase large pieces of equipment.  The way in which the funds
have been used is as follows:
1.  The SRIS (Special Research Initiative Support) provides up to $10,000 in
operating funds.  In addition, a faculty member can apply for a Graduate
Research Assistant, the level of annual support is set by the Graduate School.
The process is a competitive one and each application is reviewed by several
faculty members and given a priority score.
2.  Large Equipment Grant support is another mechanism whereby faculty could
request funds in support of a piece of equipment which would be difficult to
acquire through outside grant support.  The price tag on these equipment items
ranged from $20,000 to $50,000, sometimes with pieces costing in excess of the
$50,000 mark.
3.  Bridging funds were provided to faculty who had a hiatus in extramural
support.
4.  Funds could be used to support travel to professional meetings.
The funds could not be used to pay for permanent personnel.  It has to be
strictly used to further and enhance research activities at UMAB.
Several of the UMAB schools have intramural grants programs which they
administer on their own.  These have been established as a result of trust
funds being awarded to the school.  For example, our School of Medicine has
two such funds--the Pangborn, and the Bressler.  The school administers the
competition and only faculty from that school are eligible to apply.  Whereas
the SRIS and equipment grants are available to all faculty campuswide.
At the University of Texas Medical Branch they have an intramural grant program
to fund feasibility and pilot study for new junior faculty or for faculty who
wish to move in a new direction and need seed money to get started.  The
original source of support for this program was from the Biomedical Research
Support Grant program, but over the years funds from various foundations were
added to the pot, and so I assume that now that the BRSG funds no longer exist
that the annual private foundation allocation of funds will be used to support
this program.  Again the maximum amount of an individual award was $10,000 and
the application process was competitive.  I hope this helps.
Marjorie