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The Maryland Catalyst Fund

The Maryland Catalyst Fund program – formerly known as the Faculty Incentive Program – is the University of Maryland’s internal faculty research support program and a key resource in the university’s overall effort to expand its research activity, visibility and impact. The program is designed to enable innovative research, incentivize the pursuit of large, complex, and high-impact research initiatives, and help UMD faculty to be more competitive for extramural research awards.

The Maryland Catalyst Fund program is overseen by the Vice President for Research (VPR) and managed by the VPR’s Research Development Office, in coordination with UMD academic units and the Provost. All awards are supported by Designated Research Initiative Fund (“DRIF”) contributions from both faculty organizational unit(s) and central resources from the VPR and the Provost, and all award decisions are made subject to the availability of funds.

Universal Funding Form (PDF)

*NOTE: For the Spring 2022 cycle, the New Directions Fund deadline has been pushed from May 1 to June 15.*

Program Name In Support of Available Funding Cost Share Submission Deadline
  Unit      VPR    Provost
New Directions Fund

Track A: Proof of Concept

Track B: Limited External Grant Opportunity (LEGO)

Track C: Racial and Social Justice Research

 L1: ≤$50K
L2: ≤$25K		 50% 50% -

Semi-Annual May 1+
Nov 1
    Fearless Ideation        Workshops ID Unique UMD Strengths within High- potential Multidisciplinary Topic Areas ≤$15K 20th of each month

   Big Opportunity Fund          (Proposal Support)

 Large-scale High-impact Opportunities (~$2M/yr) ≤$50K 33.3% 33.3% 33.3% 20th of each month
Reinforcement Funds Unfunded Requirements for Large Center Awards

Equivalent of ≤10% of IDC;5yr+option

 50% 25% 25%

Funding Categories

The Maryland Catalyst Fund is undergoing some changes. The current programs available are:

New Directions Funds

The New Directions Fund aims to enable important new lines of research and creative work with high potential for impact. There are three competition tracks:

  • Track A: Proof of Concept awards support researchers pursuing a new line of research or collaborative partnership to help them be competitive for external funding.
  • Track B: Limited External Grant Opportunity (LEGO) awards support particularly innovative research, writing, and/or creative work in fields where external funding is scarce.
  • Track C: NEW: Racial & Social Justice Research awards supports research on the underpinnings of, consequences of, and/or solutions to address systemic, institutional, and structural racism and injustice.

Fearless Ideation Workshops

Fearless Ideation Workshop awards support ideation activities with all of the following goals:

  • Identify complementary research strengths and explore potential collaborations.
  • Develop high potential, innovative research ideas that require the involvement of multiple disciplines and leverage unique strengths within UMD.
  • Facilitate new and enhance existing collaborations among faculty.
  • Generate “competitive intelligence” analyses to identify gaps in the current body of research, assess future funding opportunities, and generate insights on next steps.

Fearless Ideation Workshop Awards are not intended to fund convening events designed only for information exchange among scholars but rather exploratory events that kick off a focused effort to seed new ideas and pursue funding for major research collaborations.

Big Opportunity Funds

The Big Opportunity Fund (BOF) offers proposal preparation support to incentivize faculty to pursue and be more competitive for large, high-visibility, externally-funded research opportunities (typically ≥$2M/year for multiple years). Such awards contribute to the university’s overall research volume, impact, and reputation.

Reinforcement Grants

Provide operating support to cover activities critical to the execution of a proposed large-scale externally-funded research award, when grant funding is not available to cover certain operational expenses. Such operating support is intended to help build infrastructure for new center-level research awards whose establishment improves the university’s overall impact and reputation. Reinforcement Grants aim to make major funded research programs more productive and more competitive for future renewal.

Eligibility

Only tenured/tenure-track and professional track faculty (at the rank of assistant research scientist or higher), whose full-time, home position is at UMD, are eligible to be the Principal Investigator of any Maryland Catalyst Fund award. Visiting, adjunct, and affiliate faculty are not eligible to apply; postdoctoral fellows are also ineligible.

New Directions Fund - Past Awardees

The inaugural competitions for campus-wide New Directions Fund awards took place in the fall of 2018, with work beginning in January 2018.

Brief abstracts for awardees are linked below.

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