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SPARC: Support Program for Advancing Research and Collaboration

 

Overview

The College of Education's Support Program for Advancing Research and Collaboration (SPARC) is a competitive grant program for faculty and graduate students developed to enhance and supplement the research agenda of the College and departments. The program is particularly focused on supporting interdisciplinary and interdepartmental research as well as providing seed money for pilot or small scale studies that will lead to the development of grant proposals. This program was not developed as a substitute for, or to compete with, currently available departmental, College, or campus programs but may be used in conjunction with other funding sources.

SPARC Awards

Four categories of awards are: Pre-tenure Faculty Awards, Post-tenure Faculty Awards, Graduate Student Research Support Awards, and Dean's Special Initiative Awards. Faculty awards are available to full-time, tenured/tenure-track faculty in good standing. Faculty on sabbatical, retired, or having emeritus/emerita status are not eligible to apply. Faculty may apply for more than one award at a time; however, each faculty may only have one SPARC grant award at a time. Graduate students may only receive one award per degree (i.e., maximum of one per master's degree and one per doctoral degree). More information about each award may be found through the links below.



Application and Funding Restrictions

In a typical fiscal year, one grant cycle will occur each fall and spring semester. The College will announce each fall, the amount of funds that will be made available to SPARC as well as any priorities for funding.
SPARC award funds are intended for research projects. Proposals for curriculum development and evaluations are not permitted. Joint applications between graduate students and faculty are not permitted, nor can pre and post-tenure awards be combined into one project. SPARC award funds may not be used for reimbursement on any costs expended prior to the award (retroactively). Funds received under the SPARC program may not be used to subcontract any work to another entity (e.g., a consulting firm). Funds may be used to compensate collaborators, data collectors and expert consultants.

Application Deadlines

Applications are due the last Friday of September and the last Friday of February. Please submit all application materials in hardcopy form in a sealed envelope to the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Education, 3119 Benjamin Building.

Award Review Process

All applications are screened prior to review by the committee, verifying that each application is complete and meets all application requirements; those not meeting pre-review requirements may be disqualified from that cycle. After the pre-review process, the proposals are evaluated by the committee; feedback based on these evaluations may be made available to each applicant, which may prove especially useful to strengthen future submissions.

SPARC Oversight

SPARC is a responsibility of the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education. The Associate Dean will request from each department the participation of one faculty member to facilitate college-wide representation on the SPARC Committee. Faculty membership on this committee will generally be two years, with members staggered to ensure continuity.
It will be the responsibility of the SPARC committee to decide which applications are able to be funded (in full or in part) in each cycle, and possibly which Dean's Initiative might be offered in any given year/cycle. The SPARC Committee is not obligated to award funds under each category in any given cycle or year. The SPARC Committee may recommend to the Associate Dean to redirect funds to a special initiative or to increase the level of funding for a particular project in exceptional cases. In the case that approved proposals exceed available funds, awards will be made on :
  • Overall scores and ratings of proposals
  • Relevance of proposal to department, college, campus missions
  • Recency of applicant's previous SPARC funding
  • Future project/applicant funding potential


Award Payment / Reporting

Awards made in a given semester are expected to start the following semester, unless other arrangements are made with the award recipient. Award money will be transferred to the department by the Assistant Dean for Finance and Administration. Travel plans, paperwork, and honorarium paperwork are the responsibility of the award recipient and his or her department. The recipient must abide by campus and College rules and regulations and all departmental procedures when expending funds or requesting reimbursement. All SPARC award recipients must provide a final report to the Associate Dean for Research within 90 days after completion of their research project. The report must include a description of findings and include a draft proposal/plan for obtaining future funding OR an explanation of why future funding is not proposed. The report must also contain an accounting of expenditures. Failure to meet one or more of the general requirements or requirements specific to an award category may result in a transfer of both expended and unencumbered award funds from the department back to the SPARC account, and/or no future awards through the College SPARC program for a period of time to be determined by the SPARC Committee.

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Last Modified Friday, 30-Oct-2009 11:27:12 EDT