The Dean's Office administers the General Research Fund to support expenditures essential to individual research and scholarly projects that cannot be easily funded through other sources.
Applications for small grants up to $1000 may be submitted at any time during the year and are normally decided upon promptly by the Associate Dean.
Applications for larger grants of more than $1000 but not more than $10,000 are submitted twice a year, in mid-October and mid-February. See the Faculty Calendar or for the exact deadlines. These applications are considered together by the Research Committee of the faculty so that comparisons can be made and the fund divided fairly. Faculty apply for these Large Research Grants via SM Apply when the application window opens.
The use of Large Research Grants awarded in October must be completed by the end of the following calendar year. The use of such grants awarded in February must be completed by June 15 of the following fiscal year.
Grants cover costs associated with work leading to a planned end product (e.g., publication, performance).
Normally, expenditures fall into the categories given below.
- Preparation of grant proposals or manuscripts
- Obtaining source material for research, such as original data or archived or pay-firewalled publications, databases, or images
- Page charges, submission fees, reprint costs, or license agreements (such as open-source) for new faculty publications
- Professional assistance with book publication, including developmental editing, copyediting, or workshopping of a manuscript
- Laboratory or field research or staging equipment or supplies not otherwise available
- Research or creative assistants, preferably Pomona students. If student summer researchers could be funded by SURP, this grant element may be deferred or redacted
- Travel essential to the gathering of material
Types of requests that are unlikely to be funded:
- Travel to a sabbatical site
- Meals at research site
- Travel to meet collaborators when virtual communication seems more reasonable
- General purpose books and subscriptions
- Professional society membership fees
- Maintenance contracts
- General purpose computer hardware and software
- Overspending an external or internal grant
- Research assistance that should be covered by department student wage account
- Long-term rental of studio or laboratory space
Policies
The following guidelines and procedures have been developed by the Dean's Office and the Research Committee over the years:
- Faculty on sabbatical leave are eligible to receive research grants; those on leave without pay are not normally eligible.
- Applications must be complete, including necessary signatures, in order to be considered. Please answer all questions on the application. The project description, budget justification, and optional additional information are recommended to be approximately 1 page each.
- Research grants must be used or returned by June 15, near the end of the fiscal year. The return of funds will happen automatically and without prior notification.
- Please submit receipts as they are incurred, and according to Finance Office fiscal year deadlines.
- The Research Committee may call upon outside referees for advice, especially on applications for larger grants. In such instances, the applicant may be invited to name one or more of the referees, but the Committee may also name consultants as circumstances require.
- Information governing the use of research grants will be sent with the notice of awards.
- Before seeking central research funding, faculty are encouraged to draw on their own research funds and check with their department chairs for the availability of department resources.
- For grants that would support student research wages, please include payroll considerations such as workers' compensation, and state and federal tax deductions in your calculations representing the total cost to the College for this expense. For current student wages and fringe benefits please contact the Director of Sponsored Research or the Finance Office.
For questions contact the Associate Dean for Research and Infrastructure or the Grants Administrator