INTERNAL AWARDS PROGRAM - MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of the Internal Awards Program is to stimulate productive research and scholarship that will enable USF faculty to be competitive in seeking extramural funding. In the allocation of funds across program categories, the highest priority is given to initiatives aimed at funding activities likely to enable leveraging for additional extramural funding and to initiatives aimed at scholarly activities for which availability of extramural funding is extremely limited.

Dear Applicant:  

  As academic institutions strive to respond effectively to competing funding priorities and steadily mounting costs of research infrastructure, decision-making regarding allocation of funding for programs to stimulate and/or reward productivity in research and scholarship is increasingly dependent upon the development of well-targeted programs and ongoing monitoring to assess the extent to which such programs have the intended consequences.

  In consideration of these factors, USF Research Council has worked in conjunction with staff from the USF Division of Research Proposal Services to redesign the USF Office of Research's Internal Awards Program. The redesign process has included considerable input from faculty and administrators across disciplines at USF and resulted in both restructuring of award categories, refinement of review criteria for awards, and clarification of application guidelines.

  This redesigned Internal Awards Program will be piloted via two funding cycles during the 2002-2003 academic year (deadlines on October 15, 2002 and February 17, 2003, respectively). Throughout the 2002-2003 academic year, the Research Council will collaborate with staff from the Division of Sponsored Research to conduct a full review of the pilot program and to develop strategies for monitoring the short-term and long-term impact of the program.

Melinda Forthofer, Chair
Research Council