Applicant Instructions

Recipient Responsibility

After the applicant has been notified of the award, the Office of Research will create an account by which to manage the funds granted. The faculty member will be responsible for following all University procedures in connection with the proper and timely disbursement and accounting of such funds and the completion of the necessary paperwork. All funds must be expended by the last day of the project as identified in the project timeline submitted with the proposal. If additional time is necessary, the recipient of the award shall petition the Office of Research for additional time for the account to remain open, providing convincing justification. If the award recipient does not make the request or if the request for additional time is denied, the account will be closed and a notice to such effect shall be sent to the recipient.

Accounts are set up in the names of the awarded faculty. Faculty members may sign off on service payments, student worker payments, adjuncts, purchases,travel, etc.The FRCAC Office will do our best to guide the faculty with paperwork etc, but overall it is the AWARDEES responsibility to manage transactions and keep up with account balances. This helps in preparing those who will later apply for external funding.

Effective 3-1-2010, recipients must submit a Final Report Questionnaire (located on the forms page) on the project and submit it to the VP for Research. Recipients are strongly encouraged to complete this questionnaire within 1 months of the project's completion. This report should be submitted even if research results in publication. Recipients anticipating applying for FRCAC funding at any point in the future MUST complete this final report questionnaire to be eligible to re-apply. KEEP final report COPIES FOR YOUR RECORDS. They must be attached to future applications, even if the report has already been submitted to the VP's office when project was completed.

When appropriate, the committee granting funds for a project lasting more than one semester or summer may require interim progress reports before disbursing money for a second semester or summer.

Failure to submit a final report will result in sanctions not only to the individual but the department.

• Chair of the department will be notified of the faculty member's failure to submit a report and asked to remind the faculty member of his/her obligation.
• Chair will be reminded that the failure to report reflects badly on the department as a whole and may influence decisions to grant funds to other faculty in the department.
• If a department shows a pattern of not submitting complete final reports, proposals from that department may (in extreme cases) be rejected for a period of (at most) two years.
• Faculty member who fails to submit a final report within the designated period will not be eligible to receive funds again for a four year period after the report is finally submitted.

FRCAC Acknowledgement - Grant recipients are expected to acknowledge funding by the Faculty Research and Creative Activity Grant Program on articles submitted for publication and/or presentations of creative works. If possible, the MTSU Faculty Research and Creative Activity Grant Program should be credited on program announcements distributed at presentations.

Intellectual Property. The Bayh-Dole Act imposes the duty of disclosure upon a researcher who makes an invention in the course of federally funded research. Also, under the TBR Intellectual Property policy,(see The TBR IP Policy), faculty, staff, and students are all required to disclose all inventions as well as the creation of those copyrightable works which could be reasonably expected to have commercial value. Grant recipients are thus expected to disclose any intellectual property developed as a part of the project to the Office of Research (see MTSU's IP Policy).