Purpose

The Betty Wang Discovery Fund is to be used by the Dean of the College of Science to support College faculty by maintaining state-of-the-art laboratories to advance fundamental discoveries in the basic sciences.

The award is intended to support equipment acquisitions and laboratory infrastructure improvements, broadly defined.  

Award

The College and fund will distribute $30,000 annually. The minimum request is $5,000.

Terms

Awardees must expend funds within one year of award date. 

Eligibility 

Tenured and tenure-track faculty in the College of Science

Proposal deadline

December 15 (contingent on funding)

If the 15th falls on a weekend, the proposals will be the next business day.

Proposal Guidelines and Reporting

The project description is limited to two pages, and it must include the following sections:

  • Description of equipment or infrastructure improvement 
  • Demonstration of need
  • Project Plan
  • Relationship to current or planned federal & industrial funding
  • Budget
  • For equipment requests, describe plans to operate and maintain instrument

 Append to the project description a 2-page biographical sketch for each participant.

Awardee must submit a report describing the outcomes of the award and how it has contributed to improving prospects for extramural funding. The report is due within one year of the award date.

Submission process

Email one combined pdf to research.development@science.oregonstate.edu by the deadline.

Proposal review criteria
  • Does the proposal describe a well-defined obstacle to original or transformative research that can be overcome via an equipment acquisition or laboratory infrastructure improvement?  
  • Is the need clearly demonstrated?   
  • Are the immediate outcomes clear?
  • Does the proposal describe in specific, rather than general terms, how the proposed effort expands research opportunities on campus? 
Cost sharing

Cost sharing is not required.

Learn about the full program
  • SciRIS (Stages 1-3) - awards seed funding for high impact collaborative proposals that build teams, pursue fundamental discoveries, and create societal impact (deadlines in April, July)
  • SciRIS-ii (individual investigator) - funds individual faculty who seek to establish or augment research relationships with external partners (deadline in December)
  • The Disease Mechanism and Prevention Fund - supports research into the mechanism, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of (human) disease (deadline in December)
  • The Betty Wang Discovery Fund - supports College faculty by maintaining state-of-the-art laboratories to advance fundamental discoveries in the basic sciences (deadline in December)

back to front page