Research Resilience Grant Termination Support Program

This webpage describes the purpose and process of applying to the Grant Termination Support Program as part of the university's Research Resilience Initiative.

Overview and Program Goals

The Grant Termination Support Program is designed to address the immediate and critical needs of faculty whose research programs have been disrupted due to grant terminations. Given the significant shifts in federal research investments and priorities, including changes in climate science, children’s behavioral health, humanities and creative arts, and innovation programs and other areas prioritized in the UO’s Oregon Rising Strategic Plan (Goal 4), this program aims to sustain research personnel and deliverables that are at risk. This initiative supports faculty whose grants have been terminated and whose appeals have been unsuccessful, or where no appeal process exists. 

Attending the Open Forum on Research Resilience Thursday, August 28 from 1:30–2:30 p.m. is highly encouraged as it will provide important information ahead of the pre-submission consultation. A Zoom link for the forum was provided in an August 21 email to the research community.

More information on the goals and guiding principles of the Research Resiliency Funding Programs can be found in this webinar. Use the code, "=ECN2m.V" to access the webinar.

Timeline

  • Pre-consultation Submission: Must be completed for application submission.
  • Application Deadline: Rolling.
  • Notification: As soon as possible, ideally within 30 business days.
  • Final Report: 30 days after the project period; the project period is for the requested support, not the period of external grants pending or terminated. 

Request for Proposals and Templates

Unit Head Form

Eligibility

Pre-Submission Consultation: To reduce overall administrative burden for applicants and the review committee, anyone interested in submitting a proposal must first complete a pre-consultation with Research Development Services prior to submission (email rds@uoregon.edu). This may consist of a brief meeting or asynchronous discussion.

Eligible Principal Investigators (PIs): Eligible PIs are tenure-track faculty and career research faculty with the classification of research associate, research professor (any rank), research scientist, research engineer, principal research scientist, librarian, or professor of practice (with primary duties in research), and with a 0.50+ FTE appointment during the academic year(s) of the research award. 

Ineligible Applicants:

  • Career research assistants
  • Graduate students and postdoctoral scholars (Note: support for these individuals should be requested by their advising PI)
  • Visiting professors
  • Faculty who do not have paid university faculty appointments for the academic year following the year for which Bridge Funding is requested
  • Faculty who have had the majority of their terminated funding replaced by another source 

Budget and Use of Funds

Amount: Requests should be limited to the minimum funding necessary to achieve key research and scholarly outcomes and/or provide continuity for individuals at key moments of career transition. Requests are not expected to cover the entire amount of funding lost. The PI is expected to utilize all other available resources to maintain continuity. Please consult the Research Resilience Guiding Principles when developing your request.

Length of Project: 12 months or less

Allowable costs:

  1. Salary/fringe of postdocs, graduate students, or other vital research staff
  2. Essential salary for career research faculty
  3. Core/shared user facility fees: Please note that OVPRI funds will be transferred directly to the Core (funds for all other costs will be transferred to a faculty-managed/C&I departmental index for the award)
  4. Essential supplies
  5. Publication, travel, or conference costs (if critical to achieve necessary deliverables and/or scholarly objectives)
  6. 9-month salary, summer salary, or course release /fringe for tenure track faculty in exceptional circumstances (e.g., fellowship that provided only faculty salary was terminated) 

Ineligible costs:

  • Replacement funding for projects that are completed or have been funded through other mechanisms since the termination
  • Cost overruns
  • Costs not directly related to personnel continuity or deliverables, including equipment purchases, or long-term infrastructure investments

Please work with your unit’s grant administrator/budget manager to develop your budget. See budget instructions below.

NOTE: Award letters will include language related to actions and potential reimbursement of the UO award should decisions on terminations be reversed and federal funding to reinstated to investigators. This is in line with our goals to be thoughtful fiscal stewards of limited funds.

Application Components

Application:

  • Application Form – All fields must be completed. The form cannot be saved midway through.
     
  • Proposal Documents
    1. Narrative: Briefly (no more than 2 single-spaced pages) explain the current need for grant termination support and the rationale behind the specific activities you propose to complete with additional investment. Describe what scholarly objectives of the proposed project you will be able to achieve with the requested funds. Please be sure to address how your request aligns with the Guiding Principles in your justification of need and conservative approach to the use of funds. Briefly detail the expected research deliverables to be completed with the proposed funding.
    2. References Cited: If applicable, no page limit.
    3. Budget: Please work with your unit’s grant administrator/ budget manager to fill out the "R&R 1 to 5 Year Detailed Budget" Excel template on the Sponsored Projects Forms webpage.
      • Note: Internal awards do not require indirect (F&A) costs. Please set that cell in the template to 0.
    4. Budget Justification (no page limit)
    5. Current and Pending Support (no page limit)
    6. Unit Head Approval Form: Scanned copy or e-signature confirming your unit head approves of the proposed application, including the budget. NOTE: If the signature is digital, the PDF cannot be combined with the rest of the application (combining erases the digital signature). With digital signatures, please upload the Unit Head Approval Form separately from the application PDF.

Submission Instructions:

  1. Complete all components of the application documents listed above.
  2. Combine into a single PDF in the order listed above.
  3. Save with the naming convention [Contact PI Last Name]_FY YY Grant Termination Support
  4. Fill out the basic information on the online form and upload the complete PDF.
  5. Submit the form. 

Review Process and Criteria

Upon submission, proposals will first be evaluated by Research Development Services for compliance (e.g., PI eligibility, pre-consultation completed, all applicant components complete). A subset of members from the Research Resilience Committee will review proposals based on the following review criteria.

As needed, members of the Research Resilience Committee may request additional information from the PI and/or the PI’s unit head or Associate Dean for Research. This will be a more dynamic review and award process than traditional internal funding programs to ensure that we are the most effective stewards of limited resources to achieve maximum impact.

NOTE: Funding decisions will be evaluated in partnership with the Office of General Counsel, which will offer guidance about potential termination status given ongoing litigation, mitigation of risk exposure (e.g., not being able to receive funding if the decision is reversed because deliverables have been achieved, etc.).

Below are the criteria used by the review committee when scoring proposals. The committee scores each criterion on the following scale: 1 – Excellent; 2 - Very Good; 3 – Good; 4 – Fair; 5 – Poor.

Review Criteria Based on Guiding Principles

  1. People First and Research Timing
    • Does the requested funding enable continuity of critical personnel, especially those in transition (e.g., students completing dissertations, postdocs on the job market, faculty near promotion/tenure, career faculty critical to research infrastructure)
    • Does the application justify how the requested support will safeguard or advance time-sensitive research efforts?
  2. Conservative, Strategic, and Adaptive Planning and Collaborative Problem Solving
    • Does the proposed funding request provide a conservative and reasonable strategy to achieve key research and scholarly outcomes and/or provide continuity for individuals at key moments of career transition?
    • Is the PI actively exploring all possible alternative funding options (e.g., teaching schedules, foundation or corporate-sponsored research, licensing distributions to academic or research unit)?
  3. Protecting Research Infrastructure and Investments:
    • Does support of this application enable continuity of critical investments in UO’s research infrastructure or programs (e.g., contributions to AAU metrics, protection of critical assets such as longitudinal data sets, long-term research programs, or unique institutional investments)?
  4. Redefining Metrics for Impact:
    • Do the research objectives, goals, and requested support advance high-impact research, scholarship, and creative endeavors that align with our institutional mission as a public research university?
    • Will the achievement of the research outcomes enhance the competitiveness of the researcher(s) to secure future funding?

Reporting

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

Inquiries

Questions about the Grant Continuation Support Program application or submission process may be directed to Research Development Services, rds@uoregon.edu.