Categories of Support
Funds can be used to support faculty salaries in the Research Scholar Fellowship and Summer Stipend categories, but not in the other two categories. Awards in all categories are made for one year. All of the categories are described below.
Faculty Development Grants
Up to $12,000 will be awarded to an individual investigator (or possibly more than one faculty member in the same department or field) to carry out research, including disciplinary research, and awards are for one year. The program will consider requests for support of traditional research of the highest quality and requests for financial assistance with the publication of an important book. Faculty members are expected to propose work for which full support from the school or college is not already in place or available, although the program will consider requests for shared program-and-school support. Applications that include funding from the faculty member's school and/or department are encouraged.
Research Scholar Fellowships
Provide partial salary support for a second semester of leave. To be eligible for an award, a faculty member must have been granted two semesters of approved leave, one semester of which must be a leave with full pay. These two semesters of leave are expected to be contiguous. Awards for the second semester of leave may not exceed one-third of a faculty member's annual base salary, up to a maximum of $35,000. Use your current academic year salary when submitting your proposal. Do not include fridge benefits. If you receive an award, our office will verify your salary and add fringe benefits at that time.
Important note: Priority consideration for awards will be given to individuals who apply in addition for extramural support for the second semester of leave. The RSG program will provide salary support with the limitation that the faculty member cannot receive from all combined sources more than one-half of his/her annual base salary. However, the recipient of that external support will be eligible, upon request, for an additional grant of up to $5,000 for direct (non-salary) support of research expenses as justified by the faculty member's work during that second-semester leave.
Summer Stipends
Awarded on a competitive basis to faculty who propose summer research of exceptional quality or promise. Funds may be used for research expenses or for salary payments, or a combination; proposals must detail clearly which is being requested, and why. All Summer Stipend awards are for a single year only, in the amount of $6,000. If the funds are paid as salary, fringe benefits for this amount are added in addition to the award.
Lectures and/or Symposia
The Research Scholar Grants Program emphasizes study, investigation and scholarship, but a limited number of lectures and/or symposia of up to $12,000 will be sponsored by the program when the proposals make convincing cases for positive impacts on the intellectual environment at Vanderbilt and on research conducted by the faculty. Applications that include funding from the faculty member's school and/or department are encouraged.