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.
Funding Categories
The Maryland Catalyst Fund consists of five funding categories:
New Directions Funds
Fearless Ideation Workshops
Big Opportunity Funds
Strategic Growth Funds
Reinforcement Grants for operating support
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.
2020 New Directions Proof of Concept awardees
2019 New Directions Proof of Concept awardees
2020 New Directions LEGO awardees
2019 New Directions LEGO awardees
Abstracts from the "Tier 1" program that preceded the New Directions Fund are listed here.
