Policy Title

Committee Structure

The Council consists of five Provost-appointed faculty members who serve staggered three-year terms. Representatives should come from the Colleges of Arts and Sciences (3), Business Administration (1), Dacus Library and Pettus Archives (1), Education (1), and Visual and Performing Arts (1). Members may not apply for Research Council grants or serve on the Institutional Review Board while seated on the Council. The chair is appointed annually by the Provost (or designee) who selects from current members.

The respective Directors of Grants and Sponsored Research Development (GSRD) and Undergraduate Research serve as ex officio members. The Provost is also an ex officio member who reviews the funding recommendations made by the committee and makes the final funding decisions.

Grant Categories

Grants are awarded in two categories:

Faculty Research

Supports individual faculty research, scholarship, and creative activities in all disciplines.

Faculty Research with Student Co-Investigator

Supports research that clearly includes students (graduate and undergraduate) as co-investigators substantially involved in the project. Student involvement may occur throughout the project’s duration; during a critical stage(s); or for specific, vital tasks. Student co-investigator contributions may include conceiving ideas and artistic designs, writing grant applications, conducting research, analyzing data, producing performances, and reporting results. The faculty applicant is required to clearly describe the tasks of student co-investigators at the time the application is submitted.

Eligibility

• Applicant must be a member of and eligible to vote in the Winthrop University Faculty Conference and must be continually employed at Winthrop during the entire funding period.
• Applicant must have submitted timely final project reports for any Research Council grants received prior to this funding period.
• Due to funding limits, the faculty member will not simultaneously receive funding from the Faculty Research and Faculty Research with Student Co-investigator programs in a given funding period.
• Students serving as co-investigators on a project must be in good standing at Winthrop University and be enrolled in classes (minimum of 3 credit hours) at the University during the project period or the upcoming fall semester for summer research.
• Deans, Associate/Assistant Deans, and Research Council members are not eligible to apply for funding.

Funding Guidelines

Funding Guidelines can be found on the GSRD website on the Research Council page at https://www.winthrop.edu/grants/research-council.aspx.

Evaluation Process

• The Research Council uses a scoring rubric to evaluate each application. When the rubric scores are otherwise even, priority will be given to:
• Untenured faculty hired in the past three years.
• Tenured faculty who have not applied for funding in the past three years.
• Proposals specifically designed to position the Principal Investigator to submit a competitive application for extramural funding.
• Faculty research with student co-investigator. 

The members make funding recommendations to the Provost who makes the final award determinations.  

The rubric is located on the GSRD website on the Research Council page at https://www.winthrop.edu/grants/research-council.aspx.

Guidelines are available on the Grants and Sponsored Research Development website on the Research Council webpage.

Grants and Sponsored Research Development Homepage:

https://www.winthrop.edu/grants/

Research Council Homepage:

https://www.winthrop.edu/grants/research-council.aspx

Application forms are available on the GSRD website on the Research Council and Forms webpages. The Research Council Budget and Final Report Templates are on the Research Council webpage.

https://www.winthrop.edu/grants/research-council.aspx 

https://www.winthrop.edu/grants/forms.aspx