Rockefeller College Research Incentive Fund

A small portion of the indirect costs associated with external grants is returned to Rockefeller College for use in supporting and encouraging funded research projects. This money is pooled and used for the Rockefeller College Research Incentive Fund (RCRIF). Funding decisions are based upon the following priority scale:

Priority 1: Funds that will be used to stimulate new funded research, including, for example, travel to visit funding agencies, proposal preparation expenses, or pilot studies. 

Priority 2: Support ongoing funded research activities for which funds are not currently available.

Priority 3: Invest in research infrastructure.

Priority 4: Meet matching and cost sharing requirements.

The funds available are substantially less than a FRAP grant, but there is no specific deadline and the response to requests will be rapid, and hopefully positive.  Higher priority will be given to junior faculty. However, only tenured or tenure track faculty are eligible to apply. Attendance at meetings of professional associations will not be supported unless there is a clear link to a specific fundable project. Requests should be for less than $2,000. 

A committee consisting of the department chairs, the Dean, and the Director of the Center for Policy Research oversees the allocation of these funds.  Faculty members interested in obtaining seed money funding should contact Victor Asal, Director, Center for Policy Research (Milne 300, 591-8729, vasal@albany.edu).  

Requests should address the following:

1) If applying for funds to support development of a fundable project:

a. Identify the relevant granting agencies and programs. If possible, attach abstracts of the grants with due dates and budget parameters.

b. Explain how the funds will facilitate the specific application(s)/proposal(s).

2) If applying for funds to support ongoing funded research:

a. How will the funds be used to support the project?

b. Why are additional funds needed?

3) If applying for research infrastructure or cost-sharing, describe the particulars.

Decision Criteria

a) Criticality: Requests for funds that are essential for submission of a grant are preferred.

b) Leverage: Requests for a small amount of money that will result in a large grant are preferred.

c) Probability of Success: Requests that have a high probability of success are preferred.

d) Time Horizon: Requests that will result in a grant submission within approximately one year are preferred.

e) Long Term Investment: Requests that will contribute to a series of related grants are preferred.

In order to maintain an open, fair, and transparent process, information about all awards, including amount, recipient, and purpose, will be posted on the Center for Policy Research web site. Fund recipients will be required to provide a brief report on how the money was used and its impact on research at Rockefeller College.

Summary of Awards

Date of award	Recipient	Amount	Purpose	Report
May 2009	Karl Rethemeyer	$1200	To support faculty member and graduate student taking a course in Social Networks Dynamics at the Kansas Summer Institute In Statistics in order to develop skills needed for ongoing research funded by DHS and DoD.	Click for pdf file
September 2009	Udi Sommer	$1,987	State Courts and Mortgage Moratorium Laws in the 1930s: The Interaction of Economic Conditions and Political Institutions. Support for gathering data from five additional states.	Click for pdf file
October 2009	Karl Rethemeyer	$158	Support for a graduate student to meet with Social Science Automation (SSA) as part of ongoing research on terrorism.	Click for pdf file
November 2009	Udi Sommer	$1900	Representative Appointments: The Effect of Women Constituencies on Supreme Court Confirmation Votes The purpose of the funding is collection of data for the recent appointment of Justice Sotomayor. Data will be collected for the contributions of 12 different women's rights interest groups to senators voting on Sotomayor.	Click for pdf file
December 2009	Rey Koslowski	$760	Structural Analysis of Interagency Cooperation in Worksite Enforcement Grad student attended a meeting of the North American Digital Government Working Group meeting in Washington D.C. to support work on a potential grant proposal.	Click for pdf file
February 2010	Erika Martin	$2095	Exploring Interstate Variation in Vaccine Policies and Coverage Funding will support the purchase of a software package needed to analyze National Immunization Survey (NIS) data.	Click for pdf file
April 2010	Ellen Rubin	$1047	1) Human Capital Management at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and 2) Federal Performance Appraisal Systems Funding will support travel to Washington DC to meet with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.	Click for pdf file
April 2010	Victor Asal, Karl Rethemeyer	$4247	Command Chronology Coding Project Funding will support two graduate students to code information from the United States Marine Corp (USMC) Command Chronologies for Iraq.	Click for pdf file
June 2010	David Andersen	$1500	Creating a Pathway to the Smart Grid: Analyzing Dynamic, Complex Interactions among Technology, Grid Management, Policy Innovation, and Consumer Behavior Funding will support a graduate student to assist in proposal development.
June 2010	Jim Fossett Erika Martin Michelle Meyer	$2950	The Impact of State Vaccination Policy: Disease Incidence and Vaccination Coverage Funding will support a graduate student to assist in assist in developing a typology of state vaccination requirements and exemptions through a legal analysis of state laws, regulations, and court decisions.
September 2010	Sharon Dawes	$2500	Exploratory research project on transnational public sector knowledge networks Funding will support translation from Chinese to English of 7-9 interviews conducted for this project.
September 2010	Holly Jarman	$2034	Bodies Across Borders: Regulation and Interdependence in Global Health Policy Funding will support preparation of a grant proposal to the National Science Foundation’s Law and Social Sciences Program. The grant would pay for a graduate student to assist in preparing the proposal by contributing to literature reviews, compiling paperwork and gathering necessary statistical data on patient mobility.
November 2010	Erika Martin Patricia Strach	$2000	Media Coverage of Medical Research: Is Broadcast Coverage Proportional to the Volume of Medical Research and Disease Trends? Funding will support preliminary data collection and maintenance.
November 2010	Meredith Weiss	$840	Queering Gender: Discourses, Identities, and Collective Mobilization in Southeast Asia Funding will support an intensive refresher course in Indonesian language, in preparation for external grant applications. Fluency in Indonesian is needed for purposes ranging from interviews to archival research.