The Jeffress Trust Program provides $100,000 awards as seed funding to support one-year pilot studies that encourage the development of innovative interdisciplinary strategies that integrate computational and quantitative scientific strategies across a broad range of scientific disciplines. Up to five applications will be accepted from each nonprofit academic or research institution in Virginia, nominated through their own internal selection process.

Full-time faculty at institutions in Virginia that are within seven years of their first faculty appointment are eligible to apply as Principal Investigators.

Eligible research areas for Jeffress support include astronomy, biosciences, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, environmental sciences, material science, mathematics and physics. Student participation is a requirement of the proposed research plan.

While the due date for this year's cycle has not yet been released, we expect submissions to be due in January 2020. You may use the following link to sign up for alerts relating to this funding opportunity: https://hria.org/tmf/jeffress/

Note that the competition is limited to five submissions per institution, so this may become a limited submission if interest peaks. Please contact OSP if you intend to apply so that we can determine if we need to run a limited submission competition.

The Office of Sponsored Programs will be short staffed in late November to early December. If possible, we are requesting that all proposals be received in OSP at least 2 weeks before the deadline – for proposals due November 15 to December 6. For early January deadlines, we recommended starting your budget development early and obtaining approvals of your AUH and Dean before we leave for winter break on December 19. As you know that time of year can be dicey to get approvals and the weather is also unpredictable. We may not be able to meet the submission deadline if proposals are not received at an early date.

Effective mid-October, the university will only reimburse lodging at traditional hotels/motels and alternative accommodations such as an Airbnb or dormitory style lodging are no longer permitted. The university will allow for exceptions, provided that the Alternative Lodging Request Form is completed 14 days prior to reserving the accommodations. If you have special lodging accommodations built into your sponsored programs, such as the use on on-site housing at a collaborating university or national lab, camping at field sites, or special accommodations internationally, you will need to complete the Alternative Lodging Request Form as soon as possible to ensure your travel will be reimbursed.

If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact Accounts Payable at acctspayable@jmu.edu.

This is just a friendly reminder that JMU has a contract with Enterprise and strongly encourages its use for business travel. You can even contact Transportation for assistance with making the reservation, even if you need to reserve the vehicle for use out of state. Advantages of using the Enterprise contact include a lower vehicle rental rate and complimentary supplemental insurance.

Last Wednesday, November 6, 2019 the Office of Sponsored Programs and Office of Research Development and Promotion within Research and Scholarship hosted the Noftsinger Celebration of Madison Scholarship and Recognition Reception in the Festival Ballroom. In addition to a presentation from Dr. Sharon Mazzarella, Provost Award Winner for Excellence in Research and Scholarship, and a musical performance from the Center for Inclusive Music Engagement, scholarly artifacts from the 2019 Madison Scholars were on display during the reception. The seven recipients of the Research and Scholarship Outstanding Faculty Award were also announced during the formal program. The awardees are as follows:

You can find the entire program, including Cumulative Funding Tiers, First Time Proposal Submissions, First Time Award Recipients and First Year Faculty Recognition on our webpage. We look forward to this event each year to celebrate scholarship at the university. Thank you to all who were able to attend and help make this year's event happen.

Grants.gov maintains a Community Blog that contains helpful grant writing tips as well as grant policy, eligibility and other information for those seeking federal funds. From the Grant Writing series, Grants.gov shared three tips for writing need statements:

This blog post contains examples for each tip, as well as a link to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) database of funded proposals for applicants to view. Make sure to check out the entire post here.