Research Support Application Submission Guidelines and Terms
Application Information
Research Stir accepts research project submissions for promotion on our web pages from qualified researchers of nonprofit and for profit organizations, US based and international, in all fields of natural sciences including medicine. Research Stir welcomes proposals from all qualified scientists, engineers and educators, including faculty, research staff and students. Project applicants are wholly responsible for conducting their project activities and preparing the results for reporting and publication as may be requested in case specific agreements by project supporters. Thus, Research Stir does not assume responsibility for such findings, their interpretation or publication.
You can seek different forms of support for your research project as:
- Research Grant
- Research Contract
- Collaborative Research Agreement
- Research Service Agreement
- Consulting Research Agreement
You can seek a single provider for full support of your project or providers for partial support as e.g. for a substantial piece of equipment, for costly research services like high throughput sequencing, for support of pilot studies, etc. Indicate your support requirements accordingly at the bottom of the layman version of your Abstract, as given below. For partial support itemize requests with estimated required funds per each item indicated.
Research Stir does not implement any limitations to the scope, budget, personnel or to the project proposal page format and page number so long as the project asks legitimate research questions. We at Research Sir are well aware of the fact that there are thousands of valuable research project proposals that already scored high at various funding institutions, but were rejected due to limited funding resources. To make things most convenient for scientists we are opened to accept such project proposals with only minimal format changes to the front pages. The specifics of Research Stir accepted project application Title page, Itemized Budget page, the requirement of additional layman version of your project Abstract, and the requirement of providing image material to enhance attractiveness of your project promotion are given below, as indicated in the New Project Proposals guidelines. You don’t need to change your project proposal body if it was originally written in a format required by other supporting institution (provide the name of the Institution that did not fund your project, and the funding cycle date you applied to at the bottom of your Title page). You might be required to make some changes to your unfunded application by your Institution before forwarding it to a different sponsor – check with appropriate bodies in your Organization before you submit your project to Research Stir.
For New Project Proposals we do not implement any fixed formats giving full freedom to applicants in that respect. We still require that the project proposal contains:
I. Title Page. The title page should include:
1. Proposal title,
2. Names, titles, affiliations and addresses of investigators,
3. Name(s) and address(es) of Institution(s) overseeing the proposal,
4. Research Category and Key Words. (Research Stir reserves the rights to assign different Category and Key Words to your project as we may deem appropriate).
II. Abstract. The abstract should be 600 words or less, and should be a self contained, concise description of the proposed research, including:
1. Rationale and significance of the research,
2. Goals, supporting objectives, and hypotheses to be tested,
3. Methods used to meet the objectives,
4. Expected results.
III. Table of Contents.
IV. Project Description. The project description should contain the following paragraphs in any order.
A. Introduction
1. Background – the key concepts and facts:
a) Conceptual and theoretical basis of your research,
b) Status of research in the field, including significant publications,
c) Preliminary results if available,
d) Remaining information gaps, including those that your research will address,
e) Key assumptions,
f) Methods that make your research possible.
2. Hypotheses.
3. Specific Aims and objectives.
4. Rationale and significance.
B. Experimental Plan. The experimental plan should include:
1. Methods. The methods section must describe the:
- Proposed experiments or investigations
- Materials and techniques that you will use, including their feasibility. Describe in details self invented procedures and techniques if applied in the project
- Statistical tools and/or other methods used to analyze the data
2. Specific Aims. The project Aims should be described in details.
3. Expected results and interpretations. Include the following:
- Results that will allow you to prove or disprove the project hypotheses
- Possible pitfalls and backup plans
- Methods limitations
4. Experimental timeline
V. References to Project Description. All references should include titles, and should conform to an acceptable journal format.
VI. Itemized Budget. The budget should include:
- Salaries for key personnel
- Equipment (itemize equipment requiring above $300.00 per item)
- Materials (itemize categories, e.g. chemicals, enzymes, kits, lab ware, disposables)
- Services (itemize categories: e.g. glass washing, animal facility, routine sequencing, etc.)
- Travel and training
- Institutional indirect costs if applicable (include percentage rate)
Requirement of a Layman Version of Your Project Application Abstract
For the purpose of Research Stir presentation of your project to interested scientific research supporting parties we request a second version of your project Abstract written in layman language. It is imperative that no technical language is used in that version, which is intended to be presented as the only part of your project application on Research Stir web pages and by other means through our service. For the protection of your intellectual property we also encourage you to replace in the layman version text any specific chemical, biochemical, drug and other names to more general names, e.g. instead of specifying “CKMT1A Kinase” simply specify “a mitochondrial specific kinase”. Be creative for your own protection. Research Stir reserves the right to perform such changes/removals on its own when we deem it necessary.
Additionally, for the same purpose any investigator names, addresses and locations need to be replaced or removed from the layman version of your project Abstract. Frequently it is possible for dishonest parties to take advantage of your name and/or address information to deduce intellectual property specifics of your proposal based on your previous work and publications.
The layman version of your project Abstract should include a line indicating total projected cost of your project (or itemized requests including necessary funds per each item, for partial support seekers), a line indicating the total timeline of your project and a line indicating the country of project origin listed at the bottom of final page. Remember that the layman Abstract version is independent from your regular project Abstract that needs to be included in the full project application.
Due to our non-conventional methods of scientific projects promotion the layman version of your project Abstract can become the most important part of your project presentation and as such it is imperative to make it concise, interesting, and informative. There is no word limit for the layman Abstract version and graphic material can be included. However, we discourage you from making this Abstract version longer than two regular pages.
Requirement of Your Research Project Application Related Image Material
Finally, for the purpose of enhancing attractiveness of your project promotion we request that you provide graphic or video material related to your project application. This material is independent from the images and videos included in your project application body. We request minimum of 1 image to be provided solely for the purpose of enhancing your layman Abstract version promotion. Only in rare instances images taken from the project application body would be applicable for such presentation. We encourage you to create a specific graphic representation that would visually attract your potential sponsors. This can be a schematic of your overall project goals, an exciting image generated in preliminary studies, art representation of your project proposed procedures, etc. Use your imagination again. The images should have a minimal size of 640 by 480 pixels and minimal resolution of 96 DPI. The accepted formats for images are: TIFF, JPEG, GIF, Animated GIF, PNG and PSD. You can also submit your project related video material. The video material can only be second to the mandatory 1 image requirement. The total time of your video can not exceed 3 minutes. The accepted digital video formats are: AVCHD (mts), AVI, FLV, MPEG, WMV and MOV. No more than 1 video will be accepted per project application. Research Stir reserves the right to change the format of your images and video and to apply visual and audio enhancements as we deem appropriate for the presentation on our web pages. You can provide up to four extra images (for the total number of 5) to be presented along with you project layman Abstract version.
Research Stir reserves the rights to assemble the image and video material with your layman Abstract version as we deem appropriate (that means not all of the provided images and video may be presented on our web pages). At least one image will be presented along with your Abstract. We will not use the image and video material that you provide to us for any other purpose then co-presentation with your project layman Abstract version.
As in the layman Abstract body, the image and video material cannot contain any clues as to identities and addresses of the project investigators nor any specifics related to possible intellectual property rights.
YOU HAVE TO OWN COPYRIGHTS TO THE IMAGES AND VIDEO MATERIAL WHICH YOU PROVIDE TO RESEARCH STIR. IF WE FIND THAT YOU DON’T OWN THE COPYRIGHTS, THEN YOUR PROJECT WILL BE REJECTED AND REMOVED FROM RESEARCH STIR.
Only electronic submissions of project applications are accepted by Research Stir. The accepted file formats for project applications are Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF.
Supporters interested in your project will be provided with the Title Page, and Itemized Budget pages from your original project application. This will allow the supporters to contact you directly and discuss specifics of the project and the potential research agreement or other means of support. To protect your intellectual property rights we never provide interested supporter parties with Project Description content. Keep in mind that some of the potential supporters might request the Project Description from you directly, before committing to any terms of support.
Your communication with potential supporters of your project (when you are approached by them as an effect of Research Stir services) takes place beyond Research Stir services, and Research Stir does not take part in that communication and in signing and execution of any research agreements or in execution of any other means of support. Always have your Institutional approval and professional legal sector (Institutional or contracted, experienced in research agreements) involved in signing any research agreement.
After receiving your project application submission the Research Stir team will review it for completeness, adherence to Abstract layman version requirements and suitability to Research Stir services. In some instances when Research Stir internal review will see potential problems with your project feasibility, we may request the names and contact information of three peer reviewers that you suggest, who could confirm the feasibility of your project. In such case the full project will be provided to the reviewers. The Research Stir will then base the acceptance of your project application on the opinion of the reviewers.
You will receive our acceptance E-mail of your project application or our request for additional information within three business days. If your project is accepted then the layman version of your Abstract will be promoted on Research Stir web pages at the same time.
Research Stir cannot guarantee the success of your project support application. To substantially increase the odds of your application success we encourage you to promote your Research Stir project listing on research social networks and professional scientific forums available to you.