Research Incentive Awards – College of Medicine

Program Overview

The UCF Research Incentive Award (RIA) program rewards excellence in research and creative activity. The RIA program aligns with UCF’s strategic plan, Unleashing Potential, especially in priority areas focused on Discovery and Exploration as well as Community and Culture.

There will be two RIA program winners per year in the College of Medicine.

Funding

Regardless of the contract length (9-months or 12-months), award recipients will receive a one-time award of $5,000 as soon as practicable and a $5,000 increase to their salary effective at the beginning of the succeeding academic year.

Eligibility

• Nominees from the college must be full-time faculty holding tenured, tenure-earning, or multiyear appointments with five years continuous service to be considered “eligible” to apply for the award.
  • Authorized leaves are not considered a break in service (e.g., sabbaticals, professional development leave, parental leave). Visiting and other temporary appointments are not eligible for incentive awards.
• No faculty member may be awarded a RIA — COM more than once every five years.
• Faculty on visiting (or similar temporary) appointments and faculty on less than full-time appointments are not eligible for these awards.

Application

Intent to Apply:

Intent to Apply – RIA & TIP – Submit by 11/30/26 

Applications are submitted through Faculty Insight.

Text Box Narratives:

• Research – Primary Area (text box 3000 characters – approximately 428-750 words or fewer)
  • Describe your primary area of research or creative activity.
• Research – Secondary Area (text box 3000 characters – approximately 428-750 words or fewer)
  • If applicable, describe your secondary research areas of interest. If you do not have a secondary area of research, please indicate “N/A.”
• Achievements and Recognition (text box 3000 characters – approximately 428-750 words or fewer)
  • Describe the research or creative achievements, including dates for these activities, discuss any new discoveries, major contributions to the field, creativeness, originality, significant breakthroughs, etc.

Uploads:

• Current Curriculum Vitae (Required)
• Annual Assignments (Required)
  • A summary table listing, by year, the FTE for all categories for which you had assigned duties (e.g., teaching, research, service) on your annual assignments for each of the past four (4) academic years.
• Annual Evaluations (Required)
  • A summary table listing, by year, the rating for each category of evaluation assessment (e.g., outstanding, above satisfactory, etc.) on your annual evaluations for each of the past four (4) academic years.

Supporting Materials/Research Products (Required)

• Please do not use Adobe Portfolio.  

College of Medicine candidates are required to attach the following publication information. This information must be pulled up using Web of Science. For instructions on how to use Web of Science to find the H-index, citation index, and impact factor view this instructional video.

Publication Information to include:

• H-index and citation index for each paper published during the 5 year review period
• Impact factor and journal rank in the field for each paper published during the 5 year review period
• Number of publications in the last 5 years, as senior author, first author, and co-author respectively.

In this section, applicants have the option of including external award funding information that is not captured in the OR report. If applicants would like to include this information, they are encouraged to use the chart template below and provide evidence of the award funding.

External Award Funding Chart (Optional)

In this optional section, applicants can provide a record of external award funding that is not captured by the OR office. The awards must fall within the award timeframe. Applicants must provide evidence of all awards listed in the chart below. To submit this portion, save the completed chart and evidence in one PDF document titled “External Award Funding”, then upload the PDF under the item “Supporting Materials”.

Administration will include the following documents with the candidate’s application for the 5-year review period:

• FTE assignments for research and teaching
• Dollar value of grants funded that go through the OR office
• 5-year review period is Fall to Summer

Evaluation and Award Process

College committees for the RIA award program shall be elected by and from the full-time faculty. The committee will consist of four members across departments, in addition to one nominated by the Dean. Previous RIA award winners will be encouraged to serve on the review committee. Employees who plan to apply for a particular award in the current or immediately following cycle shall not be eligible to serve on the committee. A committee chairperson shall be elected by and from the college committee. The chairperson shall charge the committee that members shall only consider the merits of the application. No additional outside information or discussion of position, e.g., instructor vs. tenure track faculty, past awards, current salary, etc., may be considered.

The committee shall convene and review the award applications then shall submit a ranked list of recommended applicants to the dean or dean’s representative. In ranking the applicants, committee members shall only consider the merits of the application. Applications that are not deemed acceptable for an award shall be left unranked. For completed applications, departures from the application specifications may impact but shall not disqualify an application.

The committee chair will transmit this ranked list to the dean or dean’s representative. If the selection committee awards fewer than the number of awards available or if the dean does not approve an award from the list submitted by the selection committee, then the award(s) shall be retained in the same college for one additional cycle before it is returned to the overall pool for apportionment.

The president, on recommendation from the provost, will give the final approval for award recipients. After the approval by the president, each college will notify all nominees of the results, including an explanation of the unit’s reasons for its recommendations.