Eligibility

The SSRI Collaborative Research Grants Program is available to full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty at all ranks. At least two different disciplines must be represented. The Primary Investigator (PI) must be from a department in the School of Social Sciences. Applicants are encouraged to collaborate with other schools on the Rice campus and institutions external to Rice including academic, industrial, and medical institutions. Recipients of a Collaborative Research Grant are not eligible to apply for another Collaborative Research Grant during the three subsequent competitions. Faculty who receive an SSRI Collaborative Research Grant but do not submit an external grant proposal will be ineligible to apply for future collaborative grants. Faculty are permitted to submit a proposal to only one competitive SSRI funding opportunity in each funding cycle.

Not accepting proposals for the FY24 funding cycle.

Award Information (FY24)

Estimated Number of Awards: 0
Anticipated Funding Amount per Award: $0
The expected start dates are as follows: Fall cycle on January 1st, and Spring cycle on July 1st.

Funding

Requests may be up to $25,000 and must be justified within the application. The amount awarded may differ from the amount requested. The duration of the award is 18 months. There is an award competition each year. Applications will be evaluated by the School’s Faculty Advisory Committee (FAC) steered by the Dean of Social Sciences and a six-member faculty panel representing multiple departments in the School of Social Sciences. Proposals must be written with a multi-disciplinary audience in mind. All research must comply with university regulations (e.g., IRB approval). All funds remaining at the time of award expiration will be returned without notice. No-cost extensions will not be granted under any circumstance.

Allowable Expenses

Funds may support research-related travel (transportation, lodging, and other incidentals; subsistence/meal per diem will not be allowed), wages (including fringe benefits) for the staff or graduate/undergraduate student workers, supplies, subject compensation, special software needs if the need is clearly tied to the project and other miscellaneous research expenses. Requests for travel funding should be actual dollar estimates of your anticipated expenses – per diem for lodging is not allowable. No support is provided for faculty supplemental compensation, travel to conferences, or computer hardware.

Application Procedure

Submit the completed online Collaborative Research application (at the bottom of this page) by the deadline. Required proposal components are listed below. Incomplete applications will not be considered for funding. All materials must be written with a minimum of 11-point Arial or Times New Roman font, with one-inch margins and single spacing, and saved as a pdf file.

1. Proposal narrative (maximum of 5 pages). The proposal narrative should discuss the research proposed and explain how it is expected to lead to a larger research project for which external funding will be sought. The research question of interest and the methods to be used should be clearly explained and accessible to a non-specialist, academic audience. Explain how and why this research question is significant and innovative in the context of existing literature. Describe how the research question necessitates an interdisciplinary team and how the different disciplines contribute to the project goals. Describe the specific roles and activities of each team member, and whether this team has worked together previously, and if so, resulting in outcomes and products. Relevant literature should be included in a separate References/Bibliography section and will not count toward the five-page narrative limit. Explain the anticipated end product of the research and how you expect it to lay the foundation for subsequent research. The proposal narrative must contain, as a separate section within the narrative a project timeline. This section will outline your schedule for the proposed research and should indicate when you plan to begin the proposed research, where it will be conducted, and when it will end.
2. Potential funding sources. Include a list of possible future funding sources appropriate for a proposal that expands this research. Include funding agency, links to the funding announcements or request for proposal, amount of award, and due dates.
3. Itemized budget and justification (maximum of two pages). Be sure to include the item, cost, quantity, and justification for each item. Examples of allowable grant expenses include but are not limited to, ­research-related travel (transportation, lodging, and other incidentals; subsistence will not be allowed), wages (including fringe benefits) for graduate or undergraduate student workers or staff, human subject payments, supplies, special software needs if the need is clearly tied to the project and other miscellaneous research expenses. Requests for travel funding should be actual dollar estimates of your anticipated expenses – per diem for lodging is not allowable. No support is provided for subsistence, faculty supplemental compensation, travel to conferences, or computer hardware.
4. Curriculum vitae (maximum of two pages per investigator). Any format is allowed, including biosketches used by NSF and NIH (but limited to 2 pages per investigator).
5. LIST OF CURRENT AND PENDING SUPPORT FOR EACH INVESTIGATOR (NO PAGE LIMIT). Any format is allowed, including current and pending support used by NSF and NIH.
6. Prior reviews if applicable. If the SSRI Collaborative Research Grant money is being used to resubmit an external proposal that was previously declined, the application should include a summary of the major criticisms raised in the review and an explanation of how the SSRI Collaborative Grant will be used to address these criticisms.

Evaluation Criteria

Applications will be evaluated in terms of significance, innovation, rationale and justification, feasibility, and likelihood to result in external funding. Proposals will be more effective if they are written clearly and for a non-specialist, academic audience.

Requirements and Expectations

Those who receive an SSRI Collaborative Research Grant are required to provide additional information:

1. A report (maximum of 2 pages) summarizing outcomes must be submitted within 60 days of the expiration of the award, including planned presentations and publications, and external grant proposals.
2. A notification of the submission of a proposal to an external funding agency, which should be within 12 months of the end of the award. If the sponsor to which you are applying does not have a deadline that falls within that month's window, please contact Chris Rodriguez (carod@rice.edu) to discuss your intended submission.

Please contact Chris Rodriguez