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Research Sustainability Fund

On June 5, 2025, Chancellor Muñoz committed $1.5 million in campus funds to support faculty researchers who have been impacted by a pause or stoppage in federal grant award funding. This fund is intended to be used over the coming 12-24 months to support faculty researchers as the federal funding landscape continues to be volatile. Unfortunately, depending on the magnitude of federal actions, it is possible that the fund will not meet all needs. The Research Sustainability Fund will address a researcher’s temporary, short-term operational needs to facilitate transition or ramp-down costs resulting from changes in federal funding.

A joint committee comprising Academic Senate and administration leadership assembled to develop the following principles to guide the allocation of funds.

  1. Funding should prioritize grants that have a high ramp-down and ramp-up cost (e.g., animal colonies, instrumentation with costly restart);
  2. Funding should prioritize commitments to PhD students;
  3. Funding should prioritize pre-tenure faculty.
  4. Funding should prioritize late-stage grants that are near completion.

To be eligible for consideration, the following criteria must be met:

  1. Funding requests are limited to federal grants that have been terminated or subject to a stop-work order (pause);
  2. A researcher must exhaust all available internal funds (e.g., start-up, incidentals, IDC, etc.) before submitting a request;
  3. A researcher’s department, graduate group (when applicable), and dean must commit available funds to support the researcher’s request.[1] The expectation is that the department, dean, and graduate group (when applicable) will at least cover 50% of the funding requested by the researcher;
  4. Requests cannot exceed the size of the grant that has been paused or terminated.
  5. Funding is not available for faculty summer salary or course releases. 

Federally-funded projects undergo an exhaustive peer-review process and are therefore of the highest intellectual merit. The Research Sustainability Fund application requests information on current and pending proposals to indicate potential paths to future funding. 

Each school has identified a lead to support faculty researchers in developing their request for funding. 

We encourage researchers interested in applying for research sustainability funds to work with their school lead in assembling the information required for the request. Please use the following Research Sustainability Fund link to submit requests to the Office of Research and Economic Development (ORED). A review committee consisting of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost, Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development, Vice Chancellor for Planning and Budget, Chief Financial Officer, and Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Education will review each request and provide a decision in a timely manner to ensure research needs are supported.

[1] In the case that the department, graduate group, and dean are not able to provide at least 50% of the funding requested by a researcher, they will be asked to report their available balances and spending plans to support that assertion. 

For inquiries, please contact: oredliaison@ucmerced.edu