Research and Innovation

Office of Research and Innovation
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo MI 49008-5456 USA
(269) 387-8298

April 1, 2020 Status Letter

Dear Colleagues, 

The past few weeks and the next few weeks are a stressful and uncertain time at Western Michigan University. We know there are many things out of our control however one thing we do control are the policies and procedures of our internal grant programs. We would like to update you on some decisions that have been made in the interest of assisting our faculty and students.

  • The Research Policy Council will review and award the spring 2020 SFSA grants and the 2020 FRACAA grants, reviewing as normal and meeting by WebEx. This will allow us to start the grants at their normal time however both grants will be awarded for 18 months.
  • We are automatically extending the project period by six months for all SFSA grants awarded Fall of 2019 and all FRACAA grants awarded Summer of 2019. You are still welcome to complete your requirements for these grants in the normal 12 month time frame however we hope this will give you more flexibility to complete your work.
  • We will also extend our Undergraduate Research Excellence grants that were awarded for use spring 2020 or summer I 2020 to be available to those students in summer II 2020 or fall 2020 if they are unable to do the work now.  We extended our deadline for Summer II and Fall 2020 until noon March 30, 2020.  These will be awarded as usual. 
  • Fall 2019 recipients of the ORI Technology Development funds will receive an automatic 6 month extension for their awards.  We will still award at least 1 spring 2020 award, the application deadline is now extended until April 14, 2020.
  • As previously announced the FRTF program will reimburse eligible faculty for registration for remote conference registration as long as the faculty member presents their work in the format of the conference.

We want to thank the Research Policy Council and our FRACAA committee members for their collaboration in identifying the best path to support our faculty. If you have any questions please contact Terri Kinzy at @email. Thank you and best wishes continuing your contributions to research and creative scholarship at WMU.

Terri Goss Kinzy PhD
Vice President for Research and Innovation

Onur Arugaslan PhD
WMU Research Policy Council Chair

Manuel Bautista PhD
2020 FRACAA Committee Chair