Funding Opportunities

College Research Activity Awards

The College Research Activities Award program is designed to enhance the research enterprise of the College of Communication and Information by assisting faculty in developing and advancing their programs of research, particularly research that is extramurally funded. The source of funding for the CRA account is the indirect costs generated by extramurally funded projects received by faculty in the College, so targeting these funds to enhance success in extramural funding is warranted.

Summer Faculty Research Fellowships

Tenure track assistant professors with five or fewer years of service and a minimum of 40% research effort on their DOE (exceptions may be negotiated between the unit head and dean) are applicable for this award. The amount of the award is $5,000, which may be allocated to summer salary, professional development dollars or a combination of both. Recipients must not teach during the eight-week summer session of the award year. Faculty members may receive up to two of these awards, one in their first three years and one in years four or five.

Speed Dating for Researchers

This event is held each spring. Up to $7,500 may be requested for research projects that involve at least two faculty members and result in an application submitted to an extramural funding agency that provides indirect cost returns. The ADR will send out the call for applications and set the proposal submission deadline based on the date selected for the speed dating event

UK Office of the Vice President for Research Support Grants

Internal grants are designed to enhance UK's research enterprise by assisting investigators in accelerating their research programs and to be successful in obtaining external funding.

University Research Professors

This $10,000 award recognizes a tenured faculty member who has a distinguished record of achievement in their field and a record of outstanding research accomplishments within the past five calendar years.

Click here to learn more or use the link below to access the funding portal.

CURATE Research Support Program

The UK Research Strategic Plan specifies providing recurring funds to support grant programs for research, scholarship and creative works in areas of excellence that are not traditionally amenable to external funding.

Click here to learn more or use the link below to access the funding portal.

UKinSPIRE

UKinSPIRE (Seeding Partnerships for International Research Engagement) is an internal funding opportunity for UK faculty that is jointly funded by the Office of the Vice President for Research and the UK International Center. UKinSPIRE is intended to stimulate high-impact research projects in any discipline linking UK faculty and international collaborators, and to establish collaborations with new international partner institutions or add greater depth to existing institutional partnerships.

Click here to learn more or use the link below to access the UKinSPIRE proposal.

Equipment Managed Maintenance Program

The Office of the Vice President for Research coordinates the Research Equipment Managed Maintenance Program. This program’s objective is to provide maintenance of critical research equipment throughout the university at a reasonable cost.

Igniting Research Collaborations

The Igniting Research Collaborations seeks to increase interdisciplinary scientific engagement and leverage the breadth of expertise across campus to tackle important problems in the Commonwealth. The IRC Pilot must be a NEW collaboration of faculty from at least two different colleges. The maximum budget amount is $50,000. Typical awards are in the $25,000 - $30,000 range. Salary for faculty is not allowed. The budget period is for six months.

UK Center for Clinical and Translational Science

The UK CCTS provides multiple types of pilot funding to catalyze collaborative, translational research. They prioritize multidisciplinary research and projects that focus on health disparities, particularly in Appalachia.

UK Center for Health Equity Transformation

The mission of the CHET Just-in-Time grant mechanism is to enable health equity researchers to obtain small funding amounts to support competitive extramural grant applications, manuscripts submission fees, conference registrations or support critical health equity training directly related to an health equity research project. This small grants program is designed to support CHET members and affiliates in conducting health equity related work.

UK United in True Racial Equity (UNITE)

A critical component of UNITE’s vision is to synergize efforts that elevate research focused on racial equity at the University of Kentucky. UNITE has developed a mechanism to sponsor the efforts of University of Kentucky researchers by way of small-scale research pilot funding, research support for scholarship focused on racial equity and support for research conducted by underrepresented racial/ethnic minority scholars.