Department of Medicine

Department of Medicine

Guidelines for Bridge Funding

Our department is committed to preserving its vibrant academic and research core missions. To maintain a strong research enterprise, this document is provided as a bridge funding reference for faculty with a lapse in sponsored project funding.

Principal Investigator Responsibilities:

Principal Investigators (PIs) are responsible for the overall proposal preparation, administrative, technical, and fiscal management of a sponsored project. These obligations include, but are not limited to, the management of the project within funding limitations, adherence to reporting requirements and ensuring that the sponsor is notified regarding a change in project status or significant conditions that may affect the sponsored project. While day-to-day operations of project finances may be delegated to staff members under the direction of the PI, the PI accepts ultimate accountability for compliance to UVM and sponsor requirements.

A PI must have a complete understanding of the funding for their personnel (see UVM policy V. 4.3.14.2, Effort Management and Reporting on Sponsored Awards: http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmppg/ppg/grants/effortreporting.pdf ) and ongoing operating costs. PIs must carefully monitor their research funding to ensure their personnel and operating expenses are within the means of their funding. PIs need to submit renewals in a timely fashion to prevent lapses in funding. Personnel terminations require two-to-six weeks’ notice. The funding of unused vacation time is incurred by the department when a PI’s funding ends. Therefore, PIs should carefully monitor the vacation accrual of the personnel within their area. In the event that a funding shortfall is identified, the department will consider the limited provision of bridge funding to maintain a PI’s research initiatives.

Bridge Funding Request:

To facilitate the appropriate review and budgeting, bridge funding requests should be submitted as early as possible prior to a lapse in research funding. Bridge funding requests will be accepted on a quarterly basis on the following schedule: April 1^st; July 1^st; October 1^st; and January 1^st. Off cycle requests may be considered by exception. Bridge funding is limited to supporting faculty salary/fringe.

Bridge funding requests should be submitted to his/her Unit Director and the Department Administrator (Tina Mazuzan; Tina.Mazuzan@uvmhealth.org) using the following LINK . Both applicant and Unit Director must sign the bridge funding request. The guiding criteria for bridge funding are:

• Evidence of on-going attempts to obtain funding or seek out alternative sources of support for effort allocations,
• Productivity benchmarks for the period of bridge funding (i.e., publication submissions, planned grant proposal submissions, etc.),

• Evidence of meeting productivity benchmarks from prior bridge funding requests

The Research Committee will confidentially review bridge funding requests and provide their recommendation to the Department Chair. Since applicants are not present during the review, it is important that the bridge funding proposal be as clear and concise as possible.