Guidelines and Application Process

Examples of graduate student involvement include, but are not limited to: 

• financial support of a graduate student, such as hiring a graduate student to perform duties associated with the project or paying for travel-related expenses for a graduate student; 
• direct graduate student involvement in the research, scholarship, or creative activity (e.g., co-authorship, data collection, data analysis); 
• active mentorship in support of a student’s academic and professional success.

Examples of acceptable use of funds include, but are not limited to: 

• financial support for a graduate student by hiring them to perform project-related duties in accordance with university policy;
• project-related equipment and/or material
• travel expenses incurred by the applicant and/or graduate students.  
• In a limited number of exceptional cases (e.g., where a project would not otherwise be feasible), FSRA funds ($5,000 maximum) can be allocated as a summer stipend for an unfunded faculty member. 

The costs associated with hiring a graduate student and/or release from teaching vary across campus. Applicants should discuss plans for the use of the award funds with their department chair. Departments may provide additional support for the proposal, at the chair’s discretion.

FSRA funds cannot replace funding under a grant or contract, although supplemental funding is allowed to pursue research that is clearly outside the scope of the grant or contract. If external support for the project is received for the same period, the FSRA will be forfeited.

Full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty members and full-time professional track faculty who are Full or Associate Members of Graduate Faculty and serve on graduate student thesis and dissertation committees at the University of Maryland are eligible to apply.  

The award period is for AY 27-28 which begins on July 1, 2027.  Funds will be available in July 2027. 

The proposal must be a faculty project and must directly involve graduate students.  In most cases, the faculty member will be the research advisor for the student(s) involved in the project and the current or prospective chair or co-chair of their thesis committee.

Faculty are eligible to receive a Faculty-Student Research Award once in any three-year-period. (A faculty member who received the Faculty-Student Support Award in AY 2024-2025 would first be eligible to receive another FSRA in AY 2027-28, which is the January 2027 competition cycle.)  Eligible faculty may submit one application.

Award recipients must submit a one-page report on the progress or results of the project within three months of the completion of the award period using this Google Form.  The report should include which graduate students were involved in the project and how they benefitted as a result of the project. Additionally, we ask awardees to submit a copy of the final product when it becomes available.

Award recipients and students supported by the award should acknowledge the Graduate School FSRA in publications or other materials supported by the award: “This project was supported by the University of Maryland Graduate School Faculty-Student Research Award.”

The FSRA selection committee comprises faculty from various disciplines across the campus.  Please present your proposal in language and a format understandable by scholars who are nonspecialists.  Committee members will evaluate proposals based on the following evaluation criteria:

• Graduate student benefit and involvement with the faculty project (direct experience and/or financial support)
• Impact and significance of the project
• Clarity of the proposal 
• feasibility of the proposal

FSRA recipients may be asked by the Graduate School to serve on an Award Selection Committee in subsequent years.

A complete application must include the following:

1. Application Cover Sheet
    

2. Project Description (up to three pages, single spaced, 12-point font, one-inch margins) The project description should be written for non-specialists.  It should include a description of the project; significance and expected impact of the project; work completed to date; timetable for completion; site where the project will be conducted; methods or creative procedures to be used; and anticipated deliverables (book, technical report, journal article, paper for scholarly meeting, performance, recording, sculpture, etc.).

   The bibliography does not count as part of the page length of the proposal.

3. Roles & Responsibilities for this Project: (1 page, 12-point font, one-inch margins) Graduate Student’s Role:  Provide a detailed account of how graduate student(s) will be involved in this project. Describe what specifically the student(s) will do.  Provide details about how the student will benefit (ie, professional benefits, skill development, and/or co-authorship, financial support).

   Faculty Role:  Define your role in this project. Provide information about how mentorship will be incorporated into the project.

4. Provide a proposed budget of up to $15,000.

   In a limited number of cases (e.g., where a project would not otherwise be feasible), 1/3 of the FSRA funding can be allocated as a summer stipend for an unfunded faculty member.

5. Curriculum Vitae (four-page limit).
    
6. Letter of Support from the Department Chair
   The Awards Portal will prompt the department chair (or chair designee) to submit their Letter of Support.  The Letter of support should include details about how funding for this faculty project will benefit graduate student mentorship and/or graduate student support.  Also, the letter should provide information about the discipline and/or the project that will help a multi-disciplinary committee evaluate the proposal.

The applicant should prepare items 1-5 as 5 PDF files and submit  to the Awards Portal at terpengage.umd.edu/gsawards/s/ before the application deadline.  The department chair should submit the letter of support to the Awards Portal within one week of the request.