PEG-FSRA Guidelines - Coastal Carolina University
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PEG-FSRA Guidelines

Office of the Provost

Professional Enhancement Grant and Faculty Summer Research Award

 

Application and Award Guidelines

CCU Faculty are invited to apply for a Professional Enhancement Grant (PEG) and/or a Faculty Summer Research Award (FSRA). These are separate awards, with different requirements. However, they share the same application form, since much of the required information is the same.  Faculty may choose to apply for only one or for both.

 

Professional Enhancement Grants (PEGs) are annual awards that provide up to $6,000 to faculty applicants in one of two categories:

1. Research Enhancement Grant (REG): to support faculty scholarly research and creative production. Any full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member is eligible to apply.

2. Teaching Enhancement Grant (TEG): to support faculty teaching and curriculum development. Any full-time faculty member, and any associated faculty member who has taught an average of nine contact hours per semester in the past three semesters, is eligible to apply.

 

Faculty Summer Research Awards (FSRAs) provide $5,250 in summer salary in the upcoming summer only for faculty members to pursue scholarly research or creative works. The award is intended as seed funding to support the collection of preliminary results or the development of project infrastructure that will aid in the pursuit of a planned external grant proposal in the coming year.  Any full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member is eligible to apply.

 

Application Guidelines

  1. Eligible CCU faculty (see above) are encouraged to apply, though they cannot receive two of the same awards (two PEG or two FSRA) in consecutive years (applies to all faculty listed on the application).
  2. Faculty may apply for a single PEG, or for a single FSRA, or for an FSRA in combination with a Research Enhancement Grant (REG) for a single project.
  3. A faculty member with two different projects can submit separate applications for the two projects (one PEG and one FSRA). If awarded both, the total combined summer salary will be limited to $5,250.
  4. FSRA applicants and any PEG applicants requesting summer salary must be able to accept the salary funding as part of their allowed summer salary (cannot exceed 30% of the 9-month base from all sources, including teaching summer courses or administrative supplements; cannot exceed their maximum daily rate).
  5. Neither PEG nor FSRA award require the direct involvement and mentoring of research students. However, in the spirit of CCU’s teacher-scholar model, applicants are encouraged to involve and/or fund students in their research activities where appropriate and to consider the potential impact of their research on student learning/success (e.g. via enhanced teaching effectiveness).

Additional guidelines for PEG applicants only:

  1. The PEG award duration is one year. Applicants can choose either a May 16 or August 16 start date.
  2. Projects involving human or vertebrate animal subjects require that the applicant apply to, and receive approval from, the University's Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), as appropriate, before commencing research activities.
  3. Projects that involve research in the K-12 public school system require a letter of support to be submitted with the application, including confirmation of the faculty member’s access and established relationship with a school and/or teacher, and any necessary permissions involving students.
  4. Applicants for a Research Enhancement Grant (REG) who have been awarded PEG funding within the past five years must include evidence that they have applied for external support since their last application. There is no minimum value required for the external support application, and the topic does not have to be related to the current REG proposal.

Additional guidelines for FSRA applicants only:

  1. FSRA eligibility is restricted to those faculty members whose summer salary for research-related activities, excluding the FSRA, will not exceed one month (11.1%) of their 9-month base salary.
  2. FSRA applicants must indicate a specific planned external funding opportunity in their application related to their project, and recipients are expected to follow through with the submission of an external grant proposal in the coming year as described in their application. Recipients who fail to complete this task will be ineligible to apply for a Faculty Summer Research Award for 5 years.
  3. Faculty collaborators on a single project may apply as co-investigators and the $5,250 award will be distributed among them as directed. Faculty collaborators may also apply separately for full awards, but they must make a strong argument that the workload and benefits merit more than one award, and the committee retains the right to make a single award depending on their evaluation and available funds.

 

Budgets

FSRA

  1. The Faculty Summer Research Award provides summer salary for this coming summer only at the set rate of $5,250, so it does not require a budget.
  2. However, the $5,250 salary approximates the rate for an average assistant/associate faculty member to teach one summer course. Applicants should therefore demonstrate in their proposals that their activities will roughly equal at least one-quarter of a full-time summer workload toward the research activity. The entire research project does not need to be completed during the summer, but the case must be made for impactful progress.

PEG

  1. All proposals must include a budget narrative and provide supporting documents specifying budget item details and costs, as needed.
  2. PEG proposal budgets are limited to a maximum of $6,000. Funds may be requested for the following:
    • Wages for student assistants (including fringe). See budget instructions on the application.
    • Equipment or supplies (include tax and shipping, document price of major items)
    • Travel directly related to required research/creative activities. Requests for conference travel are limited to a maximum of 15% of the total budget request. Per diem costs are not supported.
    • Faculty compensation, which can include either: (1) Summer salary, up to a maximum of $4,000 for salary + fringe, or (2) $3,600 for a Teaching Assistant to cover 1-course release for 1 semester.
      • If an applicant is awarded both an FSRA and a PEG, the combined faculty salary award during a single summer will be capped at $5,250.
      • Faculty compensation requests must explain how faculty time exceeds normal duties and expectations as described in departmental performance expectations. Recipients may not teach more than 1 class during a summer term in which they receive PEG/FSRA compensation.
    • Other project-related expenses.

 

Application and Submission Instructions

Download the PEG-FSRA Application form here or from the University’s Forms page (coastal.edu/forms) and save to your computer. You must download the application form, save it to your computer and then open the Adobe Acrobat file to complete and save the form.

Complete the application form, filling in the blanks on the last two pages. Then, assemble all other application components and combine with your completed application form into a single pdf file, as described below. Submit the application by the deadline below as an email attachment to research@coastal.edu, copying your department chair and dean on the email. The document name and the subject line of the email should be “PEG-FSRA [yourlastname].” If desired, deans may add supporting/clarifying comments by emailing research@coastal.edu and copying the applicant.

Applications must include the following components, using the specific headings and subheadings below. Text must be no smaller than 10-point font, single spaced, with 1-inch margins.

  1. Application Form: Pages 4-5 of this document,
  2. Abstract: Limit 300 words (on a separate page). Provide a summary abstract of your planned project and its Use language and explanations appropriate for posting as a summary for the general public.
  3. Project Description: Limit 3 pages. Describe the major components of your planned project or activity. You must clearly format your Project Description into five sections, using the subheadings in italics below:
    • Introduction (background, context)
    • Objectives (goals, purpose, hypotheses if appropriate)
    • Methods/Activities (description of major components, participant responsibilities, logistics and resources, and general timeline; if you will oversee student assistants for this project, describe the number and type of students, their roles and time contributions to the project, and associated course credit they may receive, if any)
    • Anticipated Outcomes (e.g. results, publications, products)
    • Significance/Broader Impacts (e.g. to your field, to you, to students, to the community/society)
  4. Supporting Materials: No page limit, except for
    • List of Citations
    • Curriculum Vitae (required, no longer than 3 pages)
    • Chair/Supervisor Letter of Support (required, a favorable letter implies approval of all budget items)
    • Additional supporting materials (optional: e.g. figures, letters of acceptance, workshop proposals, etc.)

 

Submission Deadline: January 20, 2023

 

Review Criteria

Proposals will be ranked separately for PEG and SFRA applications using the criteria specific to each award. Since the pool of applicants will be different for the two awards, it is possible that an applicant to both awards may receive one but not the other. Review criteria will be based on how well the applicant addresses each of the required application components described above and on responses to the application form questions.

 

Responsibilities of recipients

All recipients must submit a final report upon completion of the project, and PEG recipients will also complete a progress report after six months. FSRA recipients are expected to work with the Office of Research and the Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Services toward the submission of an external grant proposal in the next year, as indicated in their proposal.

 

Questions can be directed to your College representative(s) on the Faculty Development Committee or to the Office of Research (research@coastal.edu).