The P&G Centre for Business & Sustainability is pleased to announce the winners of the 2012-13 grant competition.  Please help us in congratulating the following winners.  Good luck on your research!

Cindy Ward – $1967.20 for research on what motivates small and medium businesses to reduce energy emissions.

Sarah Wilner - $1500 for research funding on how sustainable innovation acts as a vehicle to reconfigure how organizations create value.

Kenneth Harling - $1843.60 for research on sustainable agribusiness practices through genetically modified food.

P&G Centre for Business & Sustainability Research Grants

'Sustainability' means advancing the conditions for human and other life to flourish on earth through simultaneous progress on environmental care, social well-being, and economic value creation.  It means advancing human progress within and across generations, while respecting and living within the regenerative capacity of the biosphere.  Business has the capacity to impact sustainability for good and for ill.  The work of the P&G Centre for Business & Sustainability (P&G CBS) is to seek a positive integration of business and sustainability, to increase the good effects and eliminate the ill effects of business activity.

To that end, the P&G CBS invites proposals for research grants focused on advancing the integration of business and sustainability. This includes but is not limited to research that helps us understand:

- the key global issues that are the context for human activity and value creation, such as climate, energy generation and use, water and food security, and social development, and the implications for business policy and business value creation

- multi-sector collaboration for sustainability among business, civil society, government, and academia

- development and expansion of traditional business curriculum, including case studies related to applications of sustainability in business

Amount of Award

These grants are available to complete small projects or to provide "seed money" for a workshop or to assist in the development of a study which might lead to a larger project, to a proposal to an external agency, or to a paper for publication. The value of the award ranges from $500 to $3,000. Purchase of equipment or conference travel will not be covered by these awards. 

Deadline

The proposals must be submitted to Dr. Barry Colbert, Director, P&G Centre for Business & Sustainability, School of Business & Economics by December 17, 2012. Decisions on the grants will be made by a committee of peers affiliated with various research centres by early 2013. Submissions must be emailed to: wuhl@wlu.ca, using the 'P&G Grant Application Form' document, (form below).

Eligibility Guidelines

All full time faculty members at WLU are eligible to apply for the grants. The funds are made available for a maximum period of 24 months. Therefore, faculty with a two year limited term position are eligible to apply for this award only during their first contractual year and must complete the project and account for funds before the completion of their contract. Faculty with a one year limited position are not eligible to apply for these grants. Doctoral/graduate students can apply for this award only as co-applicant with a full-time faculty member as applicant. Professors Emeriti/Emeritae of WLU, who are not full-time employees of another institution, are eligible to apply for the grants. Visiting Professors with one year appointments are not eligible to apply for the grants. Full-time staff with an Adjunct appointment, with a PhD, and with an established publication and presentation record, are eligible to apply.

General Regulations

1) Faculty may not submit an internal grant application for essentially the same project submitted to external agencies.  Exceptions may be made in cases where the result of the external application will be known before the committee meets to adjudicate the internal grant.

2) Only one internal grant per program category will be awarded for a single research project. Projects with more than one investigator are still limited to one grant per category.

3) Incomplete applications will not be considered by the Grants Committee. The only exception to this is the Travel Grant to International Conferences, where the actual program and  evidence of acceptance of the paper can be submitted when they become available.

4) The Grants Committee may from time to time have to rank applications when the funds requested exceed the amount allocated to a grant category. This may mean that some conceptually and methodologically sound applications may not be ranked high enough to be funded.

5) All applications that require clearance (Research Ethics Board, Animal Care Committee, Biohazardous or Radioactive materials) must receive the required approval(s) before funds can be released. Applicants must indicate on their application whether the project requires any type of approval. Please call extension x3131 for further clarification on clearance requirements. 

6) Applicants are not eligible to claim expenses that were incurred prior to the date an internal grant is awarded.

7) Books, monographs, other library materials, software and equipment purchased through a WLU grant remain the property of the University. At the end of a project, or upon leaving the University, all such materials must be donated to either the University Library or the Computing Centre (i.e. software).

8) No individual may submit an application for nor hold more than one grant of the same type at the same time, except as noted under Eligibility.

9) No application will be placed on the agenda of the Grants Committee if, by the application deadline for a specific meeting, a report on a previous grant in the same category is outstanding.

10) Successful applicants must acknowledge the support received from the Office of Research Services in all presentations and publications emanating from a specific grant. A suggested acknowledgement follows:

"The author(s) gratefully acknowledge(s) that financial support for this research was received from a grant funded by the P&G Centre for Business & Sustainability.”

11) Copies of papers published as a result of support from any internal grant must be submitted to the Research Office.

12) Applicants should indicate the order of all co-authors for multi-authored publications.

13) A faculty member may apply for research grants from the University prior to, or while on Sabbatical Leave, provided the normal application deadlines are met.

NOTE: Eligible expenses for a Travel Grant, if approved for use while on sabbatical, only include: travel from the base location of the sabbatical leave to the city where the conference is held. A Travel Grant cannot be used to travel to the sabbatical site, or return to North America for a conference. If the conference is held in the same location as the sabbatical, travel expenses are not eligible, but meals, registration, local accommodation (if justified) expenses are eligible.

14) Faculty who run a deficit in one grant account must repay the University from an external grant or contract (if appropriate), from personal funds, or from another existing internal grant which has been completed with a surplus. Faculty who have been notified by the Research Office that a grant or contract account is in a deficit position will not be permitted to apply for any internal grants until the deficit has been removed.

15) Internally-funded grants must not be used to support undergraduate or graduate thesis research in which the faculty member is not, by definition, the Principal Investigator of the project.

16) Funds requested for a Research Assistant must be fully justified by indicating i) the specific tasks to be completed; ii) the qualifications of the student to complete the tasks; and iii) why a specified number of hours is required to complete the tasks; and, a budget for the number of hours at a specified rate (which must at least be the minimum hourly rate set by the university plus 14% benefits), shall be included in the application.

17) Fax, photocopying, courier, postage, and telephone are not eligible expense items in any internal grant application, unless fully justified in the research methodology as a necessary expense in order to conduct the research.

18) Unless SCRAP approves exceptions, for programs where there are two competitions per year, no more than 50% of the total budget allocated to the program in a given fiscal year can be awarded in the first competition of the fiscal year.

19) Funds awarded for travel in all grants (other than the Travel Grant) must be used to enable the recipient to complete the research project. Travel to attend conferences or to consult are ineligible expenses in any Internal Grant awarded, other than travel to present a paper if awarded a Travel Grant.

20) Applicants for all programs must adhere to any page limits indicated on the Application Form. Any additional pages will not be considered by the Grants Committee.

21) Internal grants are awarded for a specific project to be completed within an established period of time. Consequently, it is expected that a Final Report will be submitted (to the Office of Research Services) for each grant within 24 months following the letter of award. Consequently, grant accounts may be closed 24 months after an award is offered unless the grant recipient requests an extension for a specific period of time. Any requests for an extension must be submitted to the VP Research.

22) The 300 word (maximum) layperson's summary must be expressed in language that can be understood by colleagues in other disciplines. If members of the Grants Committee cannot understand the 300 word description in the application, the application may be "tabled" until the next meeting of the committee.

23) The bibliography should only include items cited in the proposal.