Purpose: Through a partnership between the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, the VCU Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Fund is designed to support, facilitate and enhance the creation, production and dissemination of arts, humanities and social sciences research and creative activity at any stage of development, including initial or mid-stage project development, presentation or performance, and final publication. 

Eligibility: Principal investigators must be any full-time VCU faculty regardless of rank or tenure status. Both single- and multi-scholar or artist grants are eligible.

Award Period: Funding up to $10,000 total for 12 months. The start date is July 1, 2023, and project end date of June 30, 2024.

Full proposal deadline: Application packages must be submitted via Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences: OP00000444 no later than 5 p.m. (ET), Feb. 10, 2023. You will receive a confirmation email upon receipt. Applications will not be accepted after the deadline for any reason.

Questions: Please direct all questions to ovprifunds@vcu.edu.

Purpose: VCU Breakthroughs Fund (Breakthroughs) supports transdisciplinary teams to design unique, creative, and innovative large-scale approaches to confront societal grand challenges in alignment with the One VCU Research Strategic Priorities Plan. Successful projects are designed to reach very specific outcomes or establish the capability to compete for external funding upon award completion.

Eligibility: Transdisciplinary research, including multiple principal investigators serving as co-PIs is required. This is defined as research that combines two or more areas of study into a seamless project. Co-PIs may be any full-time, primary appointment VCU faculty, research faculty or clinician researcher regardless of rank or tenure status. Clinician researchers must have a university faculty appointment to serve as a co-PI. Staff without affiliate faculty college/school appointments are not eligible to serve as a co-PI. Inclusive research teams encompassing meaningful participation of all members are strongly encouraged, including URM and/or minoritized faculty, early-stage investigators, trainees, and students. Projects must demonstrate alignment with a strategic priorities plan initiative, along with specific goal(s) and objective(s).

Award period: Funding awards are up to $200,000 total, with a project period of 18-24 months and an anticipated award start date in June 2023.

Application submission: Full proposals should be submitted via Breakthroughs: OP00000504 no later than 5 p.m. (ET), Feb. 17, 2023.

Questions: Please direct all questions to ovprifunds@vcu.edu.

Purpose: The VCU Momentum Fund (Momentum) promotes impactful interdisciplinary research by providing multi-principal investigator research teams with support to prepare and submit competitive, external, multi-component large-scale proposals. Competitiveness for these large-scale grants requires significant advanced planning, a well-defined and central research theme, strong preliminary data, and a history of partnership among collaborating investigators that often spans multiple schools/colleges and/or disciplines. Examples include, but are not limited to, large funding opportunities from federal agencies (e.g., National Institutes of Health P- or U-series mechanisms, National Science Foundation (NSF) Gen4 Engineering Research Centers, NSF Science and Technology Centers, Department of Energy Frontier Research Centers) or foundations (e.g., Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and MacArthur Foundation). Each Momentum award will provide up to $200,000 for up to 24 months, as well as a tailored plan for OVPRI research development team support in collaboration with other units across campus.

It is expected that research teams will propose tackling significant and complex research questions that would not be feasible to pursue through individual efforts. Partnerships across schools/colleges are strongly encouraged but not required, and teams must submit a competitive external proposal by the end of the project period.

Eligibility: A minimum of three VCU co-principal investigators (co-PIs) are required. Research teams with Co-PIs from different VCU schools or colleges are strongly encouraged but not mandatory. Co-PIs may be any full-time, primary appointment VCU faculty, research faculty or clinician researcher regardless of rank or tenure status. Clinician researchers must have a university faculty appointment to serve as a co-PI. Staff without affiliate faculty college/school appointments are not eligible to serve as a co-PI.

Note: Cancer-focused proposals are not eligible for this fund and should be directed to Massey Cancer Center’s Team Science Pilot award program.

Inclusive research teams encompassing meaningful participation of all members are strongly encouraged, including URM and/or minoritized faculty, early-stage investigators, trainees, and students (graduate and undergraduate). Projects must demonstrate alignment with one or more of the initiatives identified within the research strategic plan and be responsive to one or more specific goals and objectives.

Award: Funding up to $200,000 total with project periods up to 24 months. Project start: June 2023 (subject to completion of review process).

Application submission: A required letter of intent is due via Momentum LOI no later than 5 p.m. (ET), on Nov. 18, 2022. Full proposals (by invitation only) are due via Momentum: OP00000503 no later than 5 p.m. (ET), on March 15, 2023.

Questions: Please direct all questions to ovprifunds@vcu.edu. 

Purpose: The goal of the VCU Quest Fund (formerly the VCU Presidential Research Quest Fund) is to afford all faculty an internal funding opportunity to support new, emerging or continuing research. Research proposals that advance any discipline and area of research focus are appropriate for consideration. Requests for grant support may be based on a broad array of needs, from restarting an inactive research program to pilot studies that would produce preliminary results on which external grant applications could be based. Proposed work that helps advance transdisciplinary research, multidisciplinary research and cross-campus collaboration, as well as research that has the potential for translation to practice or market, is especially encouraged.

Eligibility: The VCU Quest fund encourages trans- and multidisciplinary project proposals, as well as single-investigator projects. PIs may be any full-time, primary appointment VCU faculty, research faculty or clinician researcher regardless of rank or tenure status. Clinician researchers must have a university faculty appointment to serve as a co-PI. Staff without affiliate faculty college/school appointments are not eligible to serve as a PI. Inclusive research teams encompassing meaningful participation of all members are strongly encouraged, including URM and/or minoritized faculty, early-stage investigators, trainees and students.

The following stipulations include current and past Presidential Research Quest Fund awardees, as well as Quest awardees:

• Faculty receiving a grant from the VCU Quest Fund as either a PI or co-PI must delay subsequent applications to the Quest for a specified time depending on their rank. Early-stage (pre-tenure) faculty may submit a second proposal three years from the termination date of their first award. Senior faculty (tenured) are required to wait four years from the termination date of their first award; and
  
  
• No faculty member may receive more than two Quest awards in a 10-year period. Projects must demonstrate alignment with a Strategic Research Priorities Plan initiative, along with specific goal(s), and objective(s).

Funding period: Funding awards are up to $50,000 total, with a project period of 18 months from July 1, 2023 – Dec. 31, 2024. There is a required 25% cost share.

Full proposal: Full proposals must be submitted via Quest: OP00000508 no later than 5 p.m. (ET), April 3, 2023.

Questions: For specific questions about proposal budgets, cost-share commitments, school/college level review and endorsement signatures, contact your associate dean for research. All other questions may be directed to ovprifunds@vcu.edu.

Please visit Innovation Gateway’s webpage for more information.