Genome, Environment and Microbiome Pilot Funding

Award Amount and Size: up to $50,000 (direct costs) for one year or less to support the proposed research. Allowable expenses will be based entirely on the needs of the project and the justification provided; however, these funds cannot cover faculty salary. Any requested salary must be for individuals at UB and no indirect costs will be paid to other institutions. 

All UB faculty whose appointments allow them to submit external proposals through UB Sponsored Programs are eligible to apply. A faculty member may only serve as PI on one proposal for each round of funding.

An ad-hoc independent reviewer group will be assembled based on the nature of proposals received. Reviews will be used by the leadership team in the selection process. The Office of the Vice President for Research and Economic Development will make the final awards. Award notifications will be issued on or before June 20, 2017.

The proposals will be reviewed according to the following criteria:

a) Scientific merit;

b) Alignment with GEM goals (www.buffalo.edu/gem)

c) Innovation and feasibility

d) Investigator team; and

e) Potential for generating external funding.

Budgets will be carefully reviewed and must be well-justified for the proposed research.

• Applicants can request funding up to $50,000 for 1 year, including up to 10% effort for GEM bioinformatic support. Prior to funding, all regulatory approvals necessary to conduct the research must be in place. 
• Awardees will be expected to apply for external funding within 12 months of completing the proposed work. 
• External funding applications will be tracked annually and any external funding resulting from these studies should be reported as soon as award statements are received. 

5:00 pm, May 19, 2017

Applications, single spaced, using 11 point font (Arial or Times New Roman), and 0.5-inch margins must include:

• Page 1 – Title page including Project Title, names/degrees and institutional affiliation of all project investigators, and a 250 word abstract. 
• Pages 2-5 – Project Description to include:
  • a) Overall goal and specific aims, ~ ½ page. 
  • b) Background and Significance, ~ ½ page. 
  • c) Experimental Approach including experimental design and description of methods to be used. Describe these so that they can be understood by an experienced scientist (avoid minutiae about methods and jargon), ~ 2 pages. Highlight the interdisciplinary and/or collaborative nature of the proposal and the role of each team member. 
  • d) Expected results and how these will be important to advancing understanding of the problem as well as necessary as preliminary data for future findings, ~ 1 page. 

Additional Information:

• Key Personnel – attach an NIH or NSF style Biosketch for each investigator in the project. 5 page limit for each investigator. 
• Project Budget – Attach a page line item budget and a 1 page budget justification. There are no indirect costs, and faculty salaries and computer hardware (unless justified for specific work) are not allowable costs. 

References: Not included in the page limit.

Note: Appendices are not allowed unless the proposed research has been previously submitted for review to an external funding agency, in which case the review and 1 page response may be submitted to demonstrate a specific need for preliminary data, for example.

Please submit to coe-gem@buffalo.edu as a single pdf by 5:00 pm of the due date.