Office of Research Advancement (ORA)

The Office of Research Advancement (ORA) supports the university’s research and scholarly community in the pursuit of external grant and research funding.

Comprehensive administrative and technical support are available to researchers as they form their research teams, identify collaborators, refine their projects and develop their proposals. Working with UB faculty, our goal is to help create highly competitive proposals to support promising research and advance university initiatives.

Regarding COVID-19:

The Office of Research Advancement (ORA) remains open and offering our full slate of proposal development services. Please contact us at ubgrants@buffalo.edu for assistance with your proposals.

The COVID-19 virus has implications for all areas of society from education to public health and policy, cyber and physical infrastructure, AI, modeling and advanced manufacturing. Your research may apply to the COVID-19 response and recovery in ways which may not be obvious. Many agencies have released updated requests for proposals and funding announcements to respond to research needs of the pandemic. Some are listed below:

NSF: Dear Colleague Letters NSF 20-052 and NSF 20-055.
NIH: funding opportunities specific to COVID-19.
DOE: Dear Colleague Letter soliciting ideas on how DOE and the National Labs might contribute resources.
DOD: Notice MTEC-Presolicitation-COVID-19.

SPIN is a searchable database for research funding with access to over 40,000 funding opportunities from more than 10,000 federal, public, non-profit, and private sponsors available to UB investigators. To search the database, we suggest using your normal search terms in addition to COVID-19 to narrow down the results (e.g., distance learning AND COVID-19). In searching the database you many find novel ways in which your research might apply to response and recovery. In addition, it will also give you an idea of how funding agencies are positioning themselves to contribute to this ongoing pandemic, both in the short- and long-term. As the needs of the societal response become clearer, it may be appropriate to reach out to your program officer.

SUNY has also created and is maintaining a COVID-19 funding and announcements page for your reference.

As always, a member of ORA can assist you with your proposal development needs. Please contact us at ubgrants@buffalo.edu.

Services

Proposal Development Assistance

Facilitate project meetings
Assist in identifying collaborators and project partners
Draft standard university text
Provide assistance with justifications and budget review in collaboration with the Office of Sponsored Projects Services
Format required proposal documents (biographical sketches, current and pending funding, and data management plans)
Peform a substantive edit of all writing components
Assist in identifying external funding sources