Bridging the Gap

Raja Velu is quite familiar with the expression, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” A professor in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, Velu is experienced in the process of developing research proposals and applying for sponsorship. “It’s extremely difficult to obtain funding,” says Velu, who secured a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture last year to analyze the food pyramid guide using a new methodology he created. “There is an intense competition for a limited pool of money, which makes it very hard for researchers—especially first-time applicants—to receive funding. The entire process can be discouraging, but you have to keep trying.”

That’s where the Bridge-Fund Award Program can help. Offered for the first time this year, the award is funded by the school’s H.H. Franklin Center for Supply Chain Management. According to operations management professor Scott Webster, who is co-director of the Franklin Center, the award assists two faculty members who submitted proposals related to supply chain management—the pipeline of information and materials involving an organization, suppliers, buyers, and others—for outside sponsorship to competitive programs and were rejected. Each $15,000 award is intended to aid the professor in continued research through student support, travel, or research-related expenses. “The award literally acts as a bridge to help the researcher develop his or her work until it becomes strong enough to receive outside funding,” Webster says. “It’s an incentive for faculty to submit proposals to outside agencies, as well as an opportunity for them to develop stronger research in the future.” It may also provide the needed time and support to better articulate deserving projects for would-be sponsors.

Proposals in areas related to supply chain management are currently being considered for the award, which is open to full-time, tenure-track SU faculty. “The area of supply chain management is broad enough to offer opportunities for faculty well beyond the Whitman School,” Webster says. “Researchers in such fields as computer science, economics, engineering, information systems, mathematics, and statistics are eligible.”

The Bridge-Fund fosters the Franklin Center’s mission of becoming a recognized leader in supply chain management education and research, Webster says. “We expect the award to increase the University’s visibility nationally and internationally as a result of the research it will promote.”

—Kate Gaetano