The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) Bridge Funding Program is designed for faculty (Assistant, Associate and Full Professors) who have an ongoing, competitive extramural grant (e.g., NSF, NIH, DOD, ACS, etc.) but whose funding has been interrupted by an unsuccessful competitive renewal.

Size of Award and Time Period
The size of the award will not exceed $25,000 per year for up to two years. Applicants may only apply for one year’s funding at a time.

Funding Constraints
Faculty salary will not be supported by this mechanism and will remain the responsibility of the unit (college, school, department, center) which incurred the original obligation. A letter of support will be required from the Department Chair, Dean or Director responsible for providing salary and space support to the applicant (see Application Requirements, below).

Funding may be used to support the salary of post-doctoral trainees, research associates and other laboratory support staff.

Funding may not be used for travel to meetings.

Eligibility
To be eligible for Bridge Funding support, the PI must have submitted a competitive renewal of his/her grant or a new grant that would allow for funding within the same time period as the competitive renewal. That is, the application for national funding that was denied must have been applied for within 6 months of the time the PI is requesting bridge funding. PIs with multiple external grants may request support for the lapsed grant, but incentive bonuses on the active grants will be discontinued during the time of bridge funding.

Application Requirements
Application for Bridge Funding will include:

1. A one-page summary statement (overview) of the research.
2. The progress report from the last year of the external grant in question.
3. A listing of all publications from the beginning of the grant period.
4. A listing of all grant applications from the beginning of the grant period.
5. The review documents of the grant in question, including priority scores and information on the number of revised applications. Applications without priority scores will not be reviewed.
6. A budget detailing the projected use of the bridge funds.
7. A description of how these funds are to be utilized to address the deficiencies noted in the reviews of the non-renewed application, as well as how the funding will contribute to a successful renewal.
8. A description of the availability of other funds, including the PI’s F&A account, matching funds from the department and/or college and a plan for how these funds will be used.
9. A letter of support from the Department Chair, Dean or Director responsible for providing salary and space support to the applicant.
10. A biosketch of the PI, in NIH or NSF format.

Second Year Request for Bridge Funding
In order to receive Bridge Funding for a second year, the applicant must provide information on efforts to restore external funding during the first year of support, and address points #5 through #9 above.

Review of Applications and Funding Criteria
Review of applications will be carried out by a committee consisting of the Associate Research Deans, the Associate Vice President for Research, and three members appointed by the OVPR Faculty Research Advisory Committee. This committee will recommend which applications to fund, based on:

• Likelihood of eventual funding (using evidence such as the priority score, the nature of the criticisms, and how well these were addressed).
• The applicant’s efforts to obtain external support.

Although not a determining factor for funding, it is strongly suggested that the applicant obtain matching funds from the college, school or department. The department’s and college/school’s provision of matching funds are important indicators of how highly the work is regarded by research leadership.

Faculty members receiving Bridge Funding awards may be required by the Bridge Funding Committee to have an external reviewer critique the revised grant proposal prior to submission.

Funding for the external review will be paid for by the OVPR.

Timeline for Bridge Funding Applications
Applications for Bridge Funding (initial and second year requests) will be accepted three times per year: the Monday on or following the 15th day of March, July and November.

Submission and Contact Information
Please submit all Bridge Funding proposals in electronic form to Dr. Gloria Heppner, Associate Vice President for Research, e-mail address: heppnerg@wayne.edu by 5:00 p.m. of the deadline date.
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Freda Giblin at 577-3448 (fgiblin@med.wayne.edu).