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Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science

Dean's Research Fund

The Research and Innovation Office (RiO) in the Faculty of Engineering and Architectural Science offers competitive research grants up to $10,000 through two types of awards, the DRF-booster and the DRF-connector. Up to 10 grants are available in each category.

The DRF-booster is awarded to select researchers who submitted a highly rated, yet unsuccessful, research grant application to a recent external competition. Applicants must demonstrate how the fund will help their research proposals achieve success.

The DRF-connector is awarded to select researchers to develop new external partnerships (with industry or hospital) that will lead to the recipient successfully applying for a large team grant through external agencies, such as tri-council, OCE, and MITACS.

Funds must be used exclusively to support Ryerson graduate students involved in the proposed research and must be used within one year of obtaining the award. Student travel expenses are not an eligible expense.

Eligibility Requirements

A FEAS researcher must be the PI and cannot be a PI on more than one application in a given category. A PI may be a co-applicant on more than one application. Applications may have co-applicants from any department within FEAS or other faculties within Ryerson.

A researcher cannot hold the same category of a DRF grant as a PI in two consecutive years. For instance, PIs of a DRF-1 grant in 2011 are not eligible to apply for the DRF-booster this year but could apply for the DRF-connector and vice-versa. Co-applicants who received either DRF-1 or DRF-2 grants in 2011 are eligible to apply for either category of DRF this year.

Review Procedures

The review committee is composed of FEAS researchers from several disciplines who serve/served on external granting council committees. Proposals will be judged on the merit of written proposal, research excellence, role of HQP and proof of need/expected outcomes. Award recipients will be announced in late May.

Application Instructions

Applications must be submitted online via the Research Information System (RIS) by 4:00 p.m. on April 30.

Log on to RIS and navigate to Faculty Grants/Faculty Applications Submission. Select the category to which you wish to apply from the dropdown list: 2013 DRF-booster and/or 2013 DRF-connector. Complete the application form and upload your full application as a PDF document. The full application must include:

First and last name of applicant and name of department.
The names and departments of any co-applicants.
Title of the project.
Summary of the project [maximum 500 words].
Name of the external partner/collaborator (mandatory for DRF-connector) and the proposed partnership strategy.
Expected outcomes and milestones [maximum 400 words].
Budget and justification [maximum half page].
Proof of need and relationship to other grants currently held by researcher(s) [maximum half page].
Grant history: List all grants awarded from 2011 to present, including the title of project, funding source and amount of funds per year. For group awards, indicate the applicant’s share.
Journal publications: List all published and/or in-press peer reviewed journal publications and conference proceedings of the PI for 2010 to present. Underline names of any students and indicate source of funding in brackets. Abstracts are not required nor are co-applicants’ journal publications.
Graduate student supervision: List all graduate students (master’s and doctoral) who are currently being supervised or co-supervised by the PI. Indicate the start date and completion date for each graduate student. Co-applicants’ graduate student details are not required.
If applying for the DRF-booster award, please include a copy of the research proposal and peer-review comments of the recent highly rated unsuccessful grant application.