Every two years, the Murdock Charitable Trust provides Northwest research universities three opportunities to apply for and secure funding for the acquisition of major scientific equipment to support research in the natural sciences, engineering and medicine. The current two-year period runs from January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2025. With this memo, the Division of Research and Innovation is requesting internal proposals from eligible faculty, colleges, centers, institutes, and academic units for the final two scientific equipment grants for the current biennium. Selected projects from this internal call will submit full proposals to the Murdock Charitable Trust for funding for equipment. We anticipate selecting two distinct projects for this round. Proposals will be reviewed by Murdock separately at sequential board meetings in 2025.

Basic Information for the Murdock Scientific Equipment Grant Program. The bullets below provide basic information on Murdock’s scientific equipment acquisition program:

• The maximum equipment grant from Murdock is $600,000.
• The equipment grant program may provide another $100,000 to attract new OSU faculty to use the equipment, support capacity building, and/or provide some indirect costs.
• The university must match this grant dollar for dollar with non-Murdock resources. Vendor discounts do not count toward the match.
• Murdock prefers to fund a single piece of equipment; however, equipment arrays that support an important part of the university’s research portfolio are also acceptable and welcome.
• The equipment or equipment array must support research in the natural sciences, engineering and/or medicine.
• The university must certify to Murdock that its proposal supports the university’s top equipment priority at the time of submission.
• Murdock will consider only one application at a time for an award. Awards are made quarterly.
• The full grant submission process from submission of the LOI to an award can take between five and nine months.

Internal Call to Submit to Murdock

In partnership with the OSU Foundation’s Office of Foundation Relations, the Division of Research and Innovation is holding an internal call to select the university’s next two applicants for the Murdock Charitable Trust’s equipment grant program. Each qualifying college, center or institute is welcome to submit its two top-priority equipment project through InfoReady. Requests that support multiple academic units are also encouraged.