Office of Research Development

The Office of Research Development (ORD) serves faculty, students and staff by expanding the opportunities they have to engage in new scholarly activity. To this end, ORD provides:

Limited Submission Process

External funding opportunities sometimes restrict the number of applications, which may be submitted by an institution. ORD manages the internal selection process.

Seminars and Workshops

ORD provides general workshops and workshops focused on particular audiences or opportunities. To increase awareness of funding opportunities, ORD hosts guest lectures by leaders from extramural funding agencies and organizes panels of successful recipients of particular awards. ORD organizes themed forums and poster sessions to help researchers develop meaningful partnerships across the campus community, In addition to directly conducting these activities, ORD supports similar activities organized or co-organized by colleges, departments and other campus units.

Extramural Relationship Building

Working in concert with units across the campus, ORD builds relationships with extramural entities, such as federal agencies, state agencies, other universities, companies and non-profits. ORD often formalizes these relationships through partnership agreements that expedite research collaboration and sponsorship. ORD represents UMBC’s research community during one-time or recurring meetings with a variety of institutional partners.

Large and Complex Proposal Efforts

ORD assists with and coordinates the preparation of major multi-disciplinary proposals that are particularly complex, such as those which involve many investigators, include several campus units, include several institutions, or require large institutional or facility considerations.

Locating Extramural Support Opportunities

The Office of Research Development and the Office of Sponsored Programs work together to provide support for UMBC researchers who are looking for external partners who will support research work on campus. For more information, click the heading above.

Internal Funding Opportunities

Scholarly activity often requires proofs-of-concept or initial results before federal agencies, foundations, or other external organizations will provide financial support. To this end, ORD manages several campus-wide intramural seed funding opportunities and helps coordinate other research funding opportunities offered by colleges, centers, and other campus units.

Core Instrumentation

An important component of fostering a healthy research environment is ensuring that the university leverages economies of scale when possible, including with the development of shared resources which would be too expensive or burdensome for an individual scholar to fund or manage on their own. To this end, UMBC’s core facilities serve clusters of faculty with shared needs. Each core facility is intended to be self-sustaining, so ORD’s involvement is primarily in establishment of new core facilities, in assisting with the development of sustainable practices and policies, and in working to bring campus units together to address issues related to core facilities.

Research Centers

At UMBC, there are department, college, and university research centers. Most university centers report to the Vice President for Research. ORD assists the VPR in the management of these centers, particularly with regard to strategic development and policy formation. ORD also works frequently with centers in accordance with the “large/complex proposals” task area of ORD.