To: Deans, Department Chairs, Assistant Professors, Assistant Professors-in-Residence and Assistant Teaching Professors
Dear Colleagues:
The Early Career Faculty Research Excellence Awards advance the University of California’s enduring commitment to the scholarship and creative activity of early career faculty across the 10 UC campuses. Selected awardees will receive a one-time $50,000 allocation to support their proposed research plan and associated allowable activities during the upcoming academic year.
Reflecting the power of the 10-campus system, these award recipients will represent the breadth of the excellence of the professoriate while accelerating the continued impact of UC in California, across the country and around the world. This program builds on a range of existing programs and initiatives designed to support thriving faculty careers at UC. Indeed, the changing national landscape for research funding demands a renewed commitment and investment in the talent, achievement and promise of early career faculty at UC.
Nomination and Selection Process
Each campus will nominate up to 10 pre-tenure ladder faculty and/or assistant professors in residence for consideration based on confirmation of their eligibility and determination of good standing, and an internal application and selection process. Up to 60 awards will be made on an annual basis. The UC selection committee will identify the top two applicants from each campus, who will receive the first 20 awards. This ensures that every campus is represented in any given year. The remaining awards will be made without regard to campus affiliation.
Nomination Criteria
All proposed projects should:
- significantly advance an applicant’s career by helping to enable the completion of a milestone accomplishment (first book, major series of experiments, article(s) in major journals, a museum exhibit, etc.); and
- be important contributions to the advancement of knowledge and/or significant creative achievements.
All projects meeting the criteria above are welcome; the final selection will also bear in mind:
- Projects for which access to extramural funding is generally limited;
- Projects for which the federal funding environment has changed, making federal grants difficult to obtain or for which grants have been lost.
- Projects for which access to extramural funding may prove challenging because they entail a new research direction for the applicants and, thus, some proof of concept or establishing a track record in the area is needed.
Proposal Components
All proposals must include:
- Project Summary: brief overview of the project (250 words)
- Project Description: a statement of the proposed research, including the significance of the project to relevant scholarship (1,000 words)
- Career Significance: Goals for the fellowship term and impact of its completion on (a) the project outlined in the description and (b) the career of the applicant. (500 words)
- Budget and Budget Narrative: Use of proposed funding (i.e. preparation of research articles/books, visits to archives or field sites, support for graduate students/post-docs, development of alternative sources for existing research program, exploring and developing research activities in new areas. (500 words)
- Optional: for faculty who have experienced disruption of federal funding, a statement of impact (250 words)
- References Cited (1 page, single spaced)
- Abbreviated CV (10 pages, maximum)
Timeline
The deadline to submit applications for internal UCLA review is Wednesday, Oct. 15 by 5 p.m. Candidates will be notified whether they have been selected as one of our campus’s 10 applicants to move forward to UCOP on or around Friday, Nov. 14.
Upon final selection and announcement of awards, UCOP will transfer funds to individual campuses to be administered at the campus level. For 2025–26 awards, funds should be spent by June 30, 2027. At the conclusion of each annual funding cycle, a final report will be required from awardees.
Application
UCLA applications should be submitted using the form linked below:
Thank you in advance for sharing this opportunity with your colleagues.
Sincerely,
Darnell Hunt
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
Michael S. Levine
Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs & Personnel
