Faculty Research Awards

Faculty Research Awards provide funds for scholarship, creative projects, and quantitative or qualitative research for eligible faculty from all colleges and schools at the University of Oregon. Examples of eligible projects include:

  • Book projects that are intended for publication with an academic press;
  • Performances in nationally or internationally known venues;
  • Creative work that will be exhibited;
  • Projects that obtain pilot data, demonstrate the feasibility of an approach or method, or contribute to the development of a prototype; and
  • Travel to conduct fieldwork or conduct research at an archive or special collection.

Individuals are limited to submitting one application per funding cycle. Applicants may serve as a collaborator or as a team member on additional projects. Priority will be given to projects where funding is significant to project launch or continuation.

Note that proposed projects must be meaningfully distinct from prior FRA-funded work. In particular, proposals for research and writing of a book should describe how prior funding met the goals of the prior project and clearly describe how the new work being proposed differs.

Important Dates

  • Application Deadline: January 22, 2023 by 11:59 pm (late applications will not be considered)
  • Department Head/Dean Approval: January 29, 2023 by 11:59 pm
  • Award Announcement: Early April 2023
  • Funding Term: July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024

Informational Webinar: PDF of Presentation
 

Guidelines

Eligibility

Eligible Applicants:

  • Tenure: All tenure-track faculty members with the rank of Assistant Professor or above are eligible to apply. 
  • Non-tenure: Non-tenure-track faculty who hold a full-time appointment (.75+ FTE) that includes substantial research responsibilities, have been employed by the university for at least three years at the time of application, and will hold a UO appointment during the academic year of the research award may also apply.

Ineligible Applicants:

  • Emeritus, Courtesy, Visiting, and Adjunct appointee ranks.
  • Faculty members who have received funding in any of the three previous award cycles (see Previous Awardees below).
  • Recipients of a Faculty Research Award from the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation who have not submitted a final report for their prior award.

Budget/Use of Funds

Amount: FRAs provide up to $10,000 in support (see last bullet for details). Matching support is not required.

Length of Project: The project period begins July 1, and may not exceed 12 months.

Allowable Costs

Funds may be used for costs necessary to plan the research project (consistent with university and state rules) including:

Unallowable Costs

  • Replacing or funding tenure-line faculty salaries during the academic year
  • Instructional release/course buyouts
  • Construction or facility renovation
  • Curriculum development or career development
  • Dissertation research costs

Application Instructions & Materials

Request for Proposals and Template document

Application

The 2023 Faculty Research Award applications must be submitted using the online submission form. 

  1. Application Form (online)
    • Basic Information: Please complete the form’s text boxes. (Note: the form cannot be saved part way through).
       
  2. Proposal Documents (see TEMPLATE in the RFP; single-spaced text, Times New Roman font in 11-point font or larger, 1” margins)
    • Project Narrative (3-page limit, not including references): Significance and Contribution; Concepts and Methods; Work Plan; Competencies, Skills, and Access; and Final Product and Dissemination. Citations/references are not counted in the 3-page limit.
    • Advancing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Statement (1-page limit): Advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion is a key value for OVPRI; we now ask faculty to articulate how their OVPRI-funded work advances these principles. 
    • Curriculum Vitae (2-page limit)
    • Budget Justification (1-page limit)
       
  3. Optional Demographic Report (online)
    • The OVPRI is committed to creating an environment that fosters sensitivity to and understanding of the diverse academic, socioeconomic, cultural, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and racial and ethnic backgrounds present in our community. The application form includes a section to disclose demographic information aimed at assessing the success of our activities towards this goal. Response to these questions is entirely optional and is not considered in award decisions. This information will not be seen by the review committee but used by OVPRI leadership to ensure our internal granting programs are inclusive and equitable and serve diverse populations at UO.

Submission Instructions

  1. Prepare the Proposal Documents using the TEMPLATE and save using the following naming convention: [Lead PI Last Name]_FRA 2023.
  2. Fill out the online Application Form. Note that there is no save option so all documents must be prepared in advance.
  3. Attach the finished Proposal Documents to the Application Form.
  4. Submit the Application Form, which will automatically be routed to Department Head/Dean for approval.
  5. Fill out Optional Demographic Report.

Review Process and Criteria

RDS will conduct an initial review will be conducted to ensure that proposals are in compliance with all guidelines. Proposals deemed non-compliant will not be reviewed further. A faculty review panel, convened by RDS, will conduct peer review to evaluate the grant proposals and recommend proposals for funding to the Vice President for Research and Innovation, who makes the final funding decisions. Applicants are informed of whether they are selected or not for the award. Upon request, feedback can be provided to interested applicants whose proposals are not funded.

Criteria

      1. Significance and Contribution: Is the project intellectually significant? What value does it offer to the faculty member’s disciplinary field and/or general audiences?
      1. Concepts and Methods: Is the conception, definition, organization, and description of the project clearly articulated? Is the methodology sound and indicated project success?
      1. Work Plan/Budget Justification: Is the work plan and timeline feasible, appropriate, and supported by a well-justified budget?
      1. Competencies, Skills, Access and Support/CV: Is the applicant well-qualified to carry out the proposed work and have the means to do so if funded?
      1. Final Product(s) and Dissemination: What is the likelihood of achieving project final product(s)? How strong is the dissemination plan for its intended audience(s)?
      1. Advancing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Research Statement: How clearly does the application articulate the alignment of the proposed project and/or activities with the OVPRI goals for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in research? Evaluate the significance and potential impact (in scholarship, community engagement, broadening participation, etc.) of the proposed work.

Reporting

A final report is required and due to Research Development Services no later than one month (30 days) after the conclusion of funding. RDS will supply awardees a link to the final report form in the last quarter of their project.

Previous Award Recipients

2022 Awards:

  • Michael Aronson, associate professor, Department of Cinema Studies, “Klan Mouse: The Birth of a Nation Redux and White Cultural Nationalism in the 1920s Pacific Northwest”
  • Maram Epstein, professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, “Women’s Novels as an Affective Archive in Late Imperial China”
  • Abigial Fine, assistant professor, Department of Academic Music, “Sacred Traces: Composers, Relics, and Art-Religion in Practice.”
  • Lynn Fujiwara, associate professor, Department of Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies, “Queering Asian American Feminisms: The Sexual Politics of Representation in Resistance”
  • Andrew Lovering, professor, Department of Human Physiology, “Is SCUBA Diving-Induced Pulmonary Hypertension Related to Blood Flow Through Patent Foramen Ovale and Inflammation?”
  • Solmaz Mohammadezadeh Kive, assistant professor, Department of Interior Architecture, “Before Islamic Art”
  • Danny Pimentel, assistant professor, School of Journalism and Communication, “Vanport AR”
  • Xiaobo Su, professor, Department of Geography, “Unhomely Life: Modernity, Mobilities, and the Making of Home in China”
  • Kate Thornhill, associate librarian, Digital Scholarship Services, “Digital Stewardship on the Oregon Coast: Curation and Preservation Capacities and Infrastructures at Small Cultural Heritage Organizations”
  • Ilana Umansky, associate professor, Department of Educational Methodology, Policy, and Leadership, “A 50-State Review of Policies for Identifying Indigenous Students as English Learner Students”

2021 Awards:

  • Emily Beck, Assistant Research Professor, Data Science, “Threespine Stickleback Fish: A New Model for Mitochondrial Diseases”
  • Annelise Heinz, Assistant Professor, History, “Book project: Collective: How Lesbian Feminists Reimagined Society”
  • Maile Hutterer, Associate Professor, History of Art and Architecture, “Architecture in the Medieval Imagination—Chapter 2, ‘Place’”
  • Masami Kawai, Assistant Professor, Cinema. Studies, “Feature Film: Valley of the Tall Grasses”
  • Wonkak Kim, Assistant Professor, Music, “Creating New Medium through Intercultural Collaboration: Performances, commercial CD, and videography, featuring original compositions for clarinet and chamber ensemble of western and Korean traditional instruments”
  • Leah Lowthorp, Assistant Professor, “Deep Cosmopolitanism: Kutiyattam, Dynamic Tradition, and National/Global Heritage in Kerala, India”
  • Drew Nobile, Assistant Professor, Music, “Voicing Form in Rock and Pop, 1991–2020”
  • Johanna Richlin, Assistant Professor, Anthropology, “Fear, Hope, and Potentiality: An Ethnographic Study of Vaccine Hesitancy in the time of Covid-19”
  • Kory Russel, Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture and Environmental Studies Program, “Water and Sanitation Services in Homeless Encampments for Improved Environmental and Public Health Outcomes: A Pilot”
  • Yvette Saavedra, Assistant Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, “Living La Mala Vida/Living the Bad Life: Transgressive Femininities, Morality, and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century California, 1800-1850”
  • Lawrence Sugiyama, Professor, Anthropology, “Traditional Ecological Knowledge Transmission among Foragers of the Gran Chaco”
  • Courtney Thorsson, Associate Professor, English, “The Sisterhood: Black Women's Literary Organizing”

2020 Awards:

  • Shankha Chakraborty, professor, Department of Economics, “Women, Work and the Family: The Curious case of India's Female Labor Force Participation”
  • Tara Fickle, assistant professor, Department of English, “Behind Aiiieeeee!: A New History of Asian American Literature”
  • Scott Fitzpatrick, professor, Department of Anthropology, “On the Shoals of Giants: Archaeological Investigation of Threatened Prehistoric Sites in the Southern Caribbean”
  • Akiko Hatakeyama, assistant professor, School of Music and Design, “Original Compositions of Electroacoustic Music by Akiko Hatakeyama (CD release)”
  • Gina Herrmann, associate professor, Department of Romance Languages, “Rivesaltes: The French Concentration Camps and the Laboratory of 20th Century Internment”
  • Jina Kim, assistant professor, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, “Amplifying Voices: Auditory Texts in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945”
  • Patricia Lambert, professor, Department of Planning, Public Policy and Management, “Arts Education and Cultural Engagement for Creative Aging”
  • Henry Luan, assistant professor, Department of Geography, “How does socioeconomic inequality impact opioid overdose deaths in the U.S.?: A multi-scale Bayesian spatiotemporal modeling approach”
  • Audrey Lucero, associate professor, Department of Education Studies, “Crossing Borders: The Perspectives of Transnational Students in Oregon High Schools”
  • Kiersten Muechinger, associate professor, Department of Product Design, “Framing “Natural” Materials through Product Color and Finish”
  • James Muruthi, assistant professor, Department of Counseling Psychology and Human Services, “Secondary Data Analysis of Health-related Quality of Life (HRQOL) in Older Oregonian Caregivers: Gender Differences and the Impact of Social Support”
  • Hajo Neis, associate professor, Department of Architecture, “THE SUGAR IN THE MILK - A Refugee Pattern Language RPL Draft”
  • Jennifer O’Neal, assistant professor, Department of Indigenous, Race and Ethnic Studies, “Beyond the Trail of Broken Treaties: International Indigenous Activism, 1972-1980”
  • Dorothee Ostmeier, professor, Department of German and Scandinavian, “Singularity in Fiction and Virtual Technologies"
  • Jennifer Presto, associate professor, Department of Comparative Literature, "Adjacent Ecologies: Russian-American Artists in the Pacific Northwest"
  • Alan Rempel, professor, Department of Earth Sciences, “Experimental Validation of Premelting Controls on Subglacial Temperatures”
  • Stephen Rodgers, professor, School of Music and Dance, “The Songs of Clara Schumann”
  • Geovanna Rodriguez, assistant professor, Department of Special Education and Clinical Sciences, “School climate and mental health outcomes in adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)”
  • Hudson Sessions, assistant professor, Department of Management, “Motivated to Misjudge the Money: A Study of the Financial Perceptions and Outcomes of Ride-Share Drivers”
  • Samantha Shune, assistant professor, Department of Special Education and Clinical Sciences, “Validation of the CARES questionnaire: Screening for dysphagia-related caregiver burden”
  • Matt Streisfeld, Department of Biology/Institute of Ecology and Evolution, “Modern genomic solutions to an old problem: the role of natural selection and genetic drift in adaptation”
  • Frances White, professor, Department of Anthropology, “Do Bonobos share more: does social and sexual intimacy mean more shared microbiomes?”
  • Juan Eduardo Wolf, associate professor, School of Music and Dance, “An Ethnographic Study of Afro-descendant Music-Dance Performance in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico”