2015 UMS Research Reinvestment Fund Seed Grant awardees announced
The Research Reinvestment Fund (RRF) Advisory Board has announced the winners of the 2015 UMS RRF Seed Grant Program.
The program aims to provide seed funding for pilot research and development projects that will enable University of Maine System faculty to strengthen research, commercialization and economic development activities that support businesses and industries critical to the state’s economy.
A related goal for the seed grant funding is to position research groups to be competitive in obtaining future external funding (e.g. federal, state or commercial). Additionally, the program supports collaborative and interdisciplinary proposals, which include two or more campuses, and/or external partners.
The RRF Advisory Board received 48 proposals for the first-round RRF Seed Grant competition. Each UMS campus had representation in at least one grant submission, and more than 30 external businesses and organizations were named as partners in the submitted proposals. Requested grant budgets ranged from $41,000 to $100,000 and a total of $4,201,329 was requested in seed grant funding.
Ten multidisciplinary projects have been awarded in the first round of funding, totaling approximately $850,000. Funded projects will be expected to submit follow-on-funding applications to federal, state or commercial sources by November 2017. A second-round competition of UMS RRF Seed Grant funding is anticipated for spring 2016.
More information on the awarded projects is online.