Internal funding opportunities

Opportunities

Below, you will find internal funding opportunities available to ASU faculty. The internal grants program deadlines are August 31 and January 31.

For faculty

Request for proposals

Award: $10,000 maximum 

• Projects must show a clear path to external grant funding (generally >$300K)
• Provide your questions or hypotheses and the current draft of the aims for the future external grant
• Explain how the internal grant would facilitate a successful external grant proposal. For example: (this is not an exhaustive list)
  • If you have received critiques on a proposal, provide the relevant critiques and how you plan to address them with the internal grant
  • Explain how the internal grant will provide the key preliminary results that are currently lacking
  • If you need a publication to launch a research program or project, explain your plan for launching that program.
• Each individual is limited to one application per funding cycle

Deadlines and submission requirements for all award proposals
 

Application deadlines are August 31 and January 31 at 11:59 p.m. MST 

Formatting

• 11 pt. font
• 1” margins on all sides
• Single spaced

Required proposal components

• Title
• Narrative (maximum one page) including research questions.
• References cited
• Detailed budget
  • Do not ask for the maximum if you can do the research for less. The School would like to fund as many proposals as possible.
• Budget justification and attached supporting information (e.g., quotes, as appropriate)
  • If your budget exceeds the allowed amount, please explain how these additional funds will be covered outside of the RTI funding mechanism.
  • Provide a brief explanation for why you do not have sufficient funds to support this research (e.g., if you have money in your startup or IIA accounts, you should be using that).
• Curriculum vitae / Biosketch in NSF or NIH format

Submission

• Combine proposal components into one PDF and name the file <position (faculty, postdoc, student)><last name> (example: postdoc Jones.pdf)
• Send the PDF to advancemyresearch@asu.edu by 11:59pm by the deadline

For information regarding review and award, please refer to the Policies and Procedures section below. 

Policies and procedures

Review process

• Proposals will be reviewed by a school-wide committee.
• Funding decisions are made within several weeks of a deadline.
• Proposals will not be considered if reports with results from previous research advancement funding have not been submitted in time (one year after funding) and are not attached to the application.

Award requirements

• Funding is provided for one year.
  • Any funds that remain after the final day of the award will be returned to the school.
• Project report
  • One-page, single-spaced
  • Detail the following:
    • What has been done with the funding
    • What tangible results (publications, conference presentations, submitted proposals, data, etc.) have been generated
    • Whether (and if so, what) changes in the project have occurred relative to the original proposal
    • Must be submitted to advancemyresearch@asu.edu within one year of the funding start date
    • OPTIONAL: A one-page (11pt 1” margin, single-spaced) response to reviewers may be included in addition to the narrative for resubmissions.

Pointers for successful proposals

Pointers for writing successful proposals (most points are not just relevant for internal proposals but also for external ones):

• Write for a general audience.
• When writing and editing your proposal, put yourself into the shoes of the reviewer. Make sure that all is clear and that your points are on target, necessary and succinct. Internal RTI proposals are reviewed by a broad committee of SoLS faculty members, so you should avoid jargon.
• A one-page narrative is just that – no more, no less. Do not put narrative information into other components of the proposal. The narrative is not a letter, so just start with the title and your name, and it is all proposal narrative for the rest of the page.
• Have a clearly stated, substantive hypothesis (or hypotheses) or research question.
• Have aims and a research description that are fully consistent with testing the hypothesis or addressing the research question.
• Describe clearly what you are going to do, how you are going to do it (including sample size and justification), and why it is important to not just your field of interest but to the life sciences in general.
• Make it clear why the work for which funding is requested is needed. For example, if you propose a certain number of field trips or sequencing runs, make a compelling argument why this number is needed for your project.
• Convince the reviewers that the project is feasible: For example, provide evidence of experience with proposed methods or techniques, describe experimental procedures in some detail and propose alternatives to avoid potential pitfalls, or provide clear support from the literature that your proposed research is doable.
• Be specific and to the point in what you want to do and why.
• Make sure there is consistency throughout the narrative, budget, budget justification, and any letters of the support.
• Double-check your spelling and grammar and consider what words should be italicized, capitalized, hyphenated, etc. Attentiveness to all details reflects well on your proposal and on you.
• Use a consistent reference format (including article titles) that is used by one or more journals in your discipline.