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Florida State University Boilerplate Language

Need assistance with institutional information for your research grant proposal?

Descriptions are provided below of areas found to be common within proposal language.

 

Investigators are advised to tailor boilerplate language to reflect the specific aims of their research project. In addition, the RD team strongly recommends that investigators directly contact the office or program lead in question when seeking a more in-depth resource description, particularly if a specific resource is integral to the research proposal.

If you need assistance describing the Environmental Support here at FSU for a grant proposal, contact our team at least two work weeks before the university submission deadline to request assistance.  We're happy to help!  If you need assistance with getting a letter of support from one of these areas, contact our team at least three or four work weeks before the university submission deadline.


Florida State University is proud to be recognized as a Preeminent University by the State of Florida. An acknowledged national leader in student retention and graduation, we help our students graduate with focused plans for careers or graduate degrees. Our preeminent faculty earn over $500,000 in external research grants every single day of the year.

Purpose:  Florida State University (FSU) is a public research university with an established international reputation for high-quality educational programs, cutting-edge research, and student success outcomes that are among the best in the nation.  In Fall 2025, FSU enrolled over 44,000 students representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and 139 other countries. This figure included 32,356 undergraduate students, 10,711 graduate students, and 1,241 non-degree students.  FSU is recognized among the top public universities in the nation, including 11th in the Niche rankings and 21st in the U.S. News and World Report rankings for 2025.  In the 2025 fiscal year, FSU had $487 million dollars in research expenditures to support discovery and innovation.  FSU Health is advancing a health care ecosystem poised to transform healthcare delivery in North Florida, including new clinical facilities in Tallahassee and Panama City.  Additionally, FSU is known for its undergraduate student success as evidenced by its most recent 97% first-year retention rate and 85% six-year graduation rate. 

The FSU main campus is in the state capital of Tallahassee in the Florida Panhandle. FSU’s physical plant includes approximately 400 buildings on 1,716 acres, including the Tallahassee main campus of 486 acres. The university has branch campuses in Panama City, Florida, and Panama City, Republic of Panama.  The FSU Ringling Center for Cultural Arts in Sarasota, Florida,  features the State Art Museum of Florida, the historic Ca’ d’Zan mansion, Circus Museum, the Historic Asolo Theater, and Bayfront Gardens. The university has a strong history of international education and maintains year-round study centers in Florence, Italy; London, England; Panama City, Republic of Panama; and Valencia, Spain.

Florida State University’s mission and vision statements embrace the institution’s legacy and propel it into its future.

Mission:  Florida State University preserves, expands, and disseminates knowledge in the sciences, technology, arts, humanities, and professions, while embracing a philosophy of learning strongly rooted in the traditions of the liberal arts. The university is dedicated to excellence in teaching, research, creative endeavors, and service. The university strives to instill the strength, skill, and character essential for lifelong learning, personal responsibility, and sustained achievement within a community that fosters free inquiry and diverse viewpoints.

Vision:  Florida State University will be among the nation’s most entrepreneurial and innovative universities, transforming the lives of our students and shaping the future of our state and society through exceptional teaching, research, creative activity, and service. We will amplify these efforts through our distinctive climate—one that places a premium on interdisciplinary inquiry and draws from the rich intellectual and personal experiences of our students, faculty, staff, and alumni. These three forces—entrepreneurship, interdisciplinarity, and experiential breadth—deepen FSU’s impact and result in a powerful return to our students and the people of Florida for their continued support and trust.

Research and Research Facilities

Since its designation as a university in 1947, Florida State University has established itself as a strong center for research and creativity in the sciences, the humanities, and the arts. During the 2022 fiscal year, FSU invested over $414 million in research, and our faculty generated over $287 million in external funding for research and creative activities. These funds, derived through contracts and grants from various private foundations, industries, and government agencies, support many of the University's research and creative activities, provide stipends for graduate students, improve research facilities, and provide opportunities for students to engage in research.

Many of our faculty members are renowned scholars in their fields. Florida State University is perhaps best known in the natural sciences for its basic research programs in physics; chemistry and biochemistry; biology; psychology; meteorology; and oceanography. Its programs in materials science, high-field magnet research, superconductivity, geology, mathematics, computer science, and statistics also have strong research components, both basic and applied. Since 1982, Florida State has operated a College of Engineering as a joint program with Florida A&M University, an enterprise combining strengths in mechanical; electrical and computer; civil; environmental; chemical and biomedical; and industrial and manufacturing engineering. The Florida State University College of Medicine, founded by statute in 2000, has major research components in the biomedical and clinical sciences, family medicine and rural health, geriatrics, and medical humanities and social sciences. Finally, Florida State has traditional and ongoing strengths in the performing and creative arts and humanities.

Special Programs

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory (NHMFL) is the only user-facility of its kind in the United States and the highest-powered magnet laboratory in the world. Headquartered at Florida State since 1994, the lab hosts roughly two thousand visiting scientists each year from dozens of countries who come to use our unique magnets to explore promising new materials, solve global energy problems, and advance our understanding of the biochemistry that underlies living things. Coupled with brilliant in-house researchers in physics, biology, chemistry, engineering, geochemistry, materials science, and medicine, their findings result in more than 400 scientific publications per year in peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Science, and Physical Review Letters.

The MagLab is home to more than a dozen world-record magnet systems that were designed and built in-house by experts in magnet and science technology, including the world's strongest continuous field magnet at 45 tesla, the most powerful MRI at 900 MHz, a 21 tesla ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer, 36 tesla NMR magnet, and a 32 tesla all-superconducting magnet These tools open new frontiers of science and have enormous potential for commercial and industrial applications. The MagLab has many exciting research opportunities for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers from across scientific disciplines who are interested in hands-on research experiences in an environment filled with world-class resources and instruments. The Applied Superconductivity Center (ASC) is associated with the NHMFL and the College of Engineering. Researchers at the ASC study high temperate superconducting materials that can be used in magnet construction, motors, and energy storage or transmission devices. Other materials efforts of note take place in the departments of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Physics, and Scientific Computing, as well as in units of the College of Engineering.

Florida State University has made major investments in faculty and infrastructure in the area of materials science and engineering. The High-Performance Materials Institute (HPMI), located in the Materials Research Building, specializes in the synthesis, fabrication, and characterization of advanced composite materials, nanomaterials and additive manufacturing. These lightweight but strong and multifunctional composites materials have broad applications in aerospace, transportation, energy, and medical applications.

The Center for Advanced Power Systems (CAPS) performs basic and applied research to improve power systems technology focusing on electric power systems modeling and simulation; power electronics and machines; control systems; thermal management; high temperature superconductor characterization; and electrical insulation research. The development of cutting-edge technologies and a technology-savvy workforce in a broad range of aerospace and propulsion disciplines is the focus of the Florida Center for Advanced Aero-Propulsion (FCAAP). FCAAP is a Center of Excellence led by Florida State University with the University of Central Florida, the University of Florida, and Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University as partners. FCAAP is housed in the Aero-Propulsion, Mechatronics and Energy (AME) Building. The AME building contains a variety of unique instruments and facilities including advanced polysonic wind tunnels, renewable energy, and robotics research labs. Center for Resilient Infrastructure and Disaster Response (RIDER) hosted in the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering is the leading many major national and state-wide research efforts of modeling and simulation of complex interconnected networks for resilience: planning, monitoring, response and rehabilitation of nature disaster, emergency, and major environmental events.

The Program in Nuclear Research is highly ranked nationally, with emphasis on nuclear structure physics, nuclear astrophysics, radioactive beam studies, hadronic nuclear physics, and relativistic heavy ion reactions. A large part of the program in experimental nuclear physics uses Florida State University's Superconducting Linear Accelerator Facility. The facility consists of a Super-FN tandem Van de Graaff electrostatic accelerator that injects into a heavy-ion superconducting linear accelerator, which are used to drive the RESOLUT radioactive-beam facility, the SE-SPS high-resolution magnetic spectrograph and the Clarion-2 gamma-detector array. A new research area in medical physics is being pursued at the laboratory in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.

Florida State University's Coastal and Marine Laboratory (FSUCML) is located forty-five miles south of Tallahassee on the Gulf of America. This research facility gives scientists and students access to one of the least impacted coastal environments of the southeastern U.S. Facilities include a fleet of small research vessels, a fully equipped dive locker, analytical laboratories supplied with seawater from multiple systems, classrooms and dormitory space for students and visiting research scientists. The analytical lab building includes two recently renovated 60-square-foot temperature-controlled environmental chambers and a suite of general-use scientific instruments. The 352 m2 Shellfish Research Hatchery includes an algal culture system, a brood-stock conditioning room, and larval culture and settlement tanks. The hatchery provides larvae and juveniles of multiple shellfish species for research and restoration. The FSUCML is home port for the 63' aluminum research vessel, R/V Apalachee, which can be equipped with a full ocean depth Seabird CTD-water sampling system and a small Seamor Remotely Operated Vehicle. The FSUCML also operates FSU's scientific diving program, which provides support for and oversight of all scientific and educational compressed-gas diving for FSU and other AAUS institutions.

The Center for Ocean-Atmospheric Prediction Studies (COAPS) trains oceanographers, meteorologists, and scientists in related disciplines. Research at COAPS focuses on ocean and atmospheric dynamics and their applications to interdisciplinary studies. COAPS scientists specialize in the modeling of ocean and atmospheric dynamics, climate prediction on scales of months to decades, air-sea interaction and modeling, and predictions of socio-economic consequences of ocean-atmospheric variations. COAPS is host to the Florida Climate Center (FCC), home of the State Climatologist. COAPS is also part of the Florida Climate Institute, a network of universities across Florida working to improve society's understanding of climate variability and change by fostering inter-disciplinary research, developing new technologies for a resilient Florida, and strengthening education in climate science and applications.

Structural Biology, a collaboration of faculty from the Departments of Biological Science, Chemistry and Biochemistry, Mathematics, Medical Science, and Physics, is the research emphasis of the Institute of Molecular Biophysics. Research conducted by Structural Biology faculty focuses on the three-dimensional structure of biologically important macromolecules and the structural correlates of their functional properties. A variety of state-of-the-art research tools are available in the Institute and allied units including X-ray crystallography, cryoelectron microscopy, mass spectrometry, computer-based molecular modeling, electron paramagnetic resonance, fluorescence, laser and NMR spectroscopies.

A number of Florida State University programs have won statewide, national, or international distinction for their research. These include the following:

The Institute for Justice Research and Development (IJRD) advances science, policy, and practice to improve the well-being of individuals, families, and communities impacted by criminal justice system involvement. IJRD conducts rigorous, real-world intervention research; rapidly disseminates findings to enact data-driven reforms; trains professionals at the intersection of social work and criminal justice; and harnesses technology to maximize impact.

The Learning Systems Institute (LSI)is a multidisciplinary program designed to bridge the gap between research and practice in education and training. Researchers at LSI combine strengths in educational leadership, instructional design, and human performance to design, build, and implement effective learning strategies for a wide range of clients around the world. Founded in the 1960s to help the South Korean government in its efforts to overhaul the country's school system, LSI has grown to become an international resource for learning. In the 1990s, the institute's pioneering work in distance learning led to it becoming the home for the University's online educational outreach.

The Florida Center for Reading Research (FCRR) was established by Gov. Jeb Bush in 2002 as the central source of research and training for Florida's initiatives in improving the reading and literacy levels of K–12 students throughout the state. Over 20 years, FCRR has grown into an internationally renowned, interdisciplinary research center with faculty in psychology, education, communication sciences and disorders, and social work contributing to investigations of all aspects of reading and reading-related skills across the lifespan. The center focuses FSU's strengths in translational science. Discoveries from basic and applied research are translated into evidence-based approaches to instruction, intervention, and assessment that are disseminated to partners like the Florida Department of Education and directly to students, teachers, families, and communities.

Florida State University's Autism Institute, housed in the College of Medicine, coordinates and promotes research, education, and service related to autism spectrum disorders. The institute promotes Interdisciplinary research that advances scientific knowledge and bridges the gap between this knowledge and clinical/educational practice.

The Florida Institute for Child Welfare (FICW) at the College of Social Work was established by the Florida Legislature in 2014. In collaboration with a statewide affiliate network, FICW maintains a program of research and evaluation to support improvements within the child welfare system. In 2020, the legislature tasked the Institute with several new mandates, including the design and implementation of an interactive, interdisciplinary social work curriculum, a development of a career-long professional development curriculum, and specialized, capacity-building technical assistance for organizations.

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art located in Sarasota, Florida, is the designated State Museum of Florida. In 2000, the Legislature shifted the museum's administration to Florida State University in recognition, in part, of the growing trend to maximize the educational value and potential of museums and, in part, to take advantage of the University's commitment to the arts. That potential is especially evident through this association with the Sarasota community due to mutual strengths in the areas of the fine and performing arts and corollary interests, such as the American circus. The Ringling Museum, the home of an internationally renowned art collection, occupies sixty acres of beautiful bay-front property, including the museum of art, the historic Asolo Theatre (restored in 2006), Ca'd'Zan, the Ringling Mansion, and the Circus Museum, now featuring the Tibbals Learning Center, dedicated to preserving the world's largest and most complete collection of circus art and history. Together with the Florida State University Performing Arts Center, which lies adjacent to the art museum, it holds center stage for Florida State University's Ringling Center for the Cultural Arts, created by the Florida Legislature in the year 2000.

Florida State University's Institute of Science and Public Affairs is a multifaceted institute of public service and applied research that helps governmental and private agencies solve problems ranging from hazardous waste disposal to conflict resolution. Research centers within the institute respond to public and private sector needs. Specialists in the fields of biology, chemistry, geography, education, planning, public administration, physics, economics, law, and other areas carry out the University's public service responsibility through programs in education, training, and applied research. The overriding objective is to successfully apply resources, human and technical, to policy problems within the state of Florida. The Institute provides University students the opportunity to work on specific projects in institute centers under the supervision of experienced faculty and staff. These projects provide training for students in problem-solving environments. Government agencies and private sector organizations benefit from this dynamic source of trained and skilled personnel.

Since 1951, students and faculty of Florida State University have benefited from its membership in Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU). ORAU is a consortium of more than one hundred PhD granting universities and a management and operating contractor for the U.S. Department of Energy, located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. ORAU works with its member institutions to help their students and faculty gain access to federal research facilities throughout the country; to keep its members informed about opportunities for fellowship, scholarship, and research appointments; and to organize research alliances among its members, including programs designed to increase the numbers of underrepresented minority students pursuing degrees in science- and engineering-related disciplines.

In addition to membership in ORAU, Florida State University is one of the core university partners with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). Partnership with ORNL facilitates research collaborations and affords access for faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students to unique capabilities in neuron scattering, high performance computing, and materials science. Furthermore, graduate students have the potential to participate in ORNL's Graduate Opportunities (GO!) Program involving dual mentorship between FSU faculty and national lab staff members.

Research Support

Many offices support researchers, including, within OVPR, the Office of Research Development (ORD), which helps faculty to meet collaborators and aids in proposal development, the Office of Commercialization, which handles technology transfer, Sponsored Research Administration (SRA), which facilitates and monitors federal and state grants, the Office for Human Subjects Protection (HSP), which aids those who research involves human participants, and Laboratory Animal Resources (LAR), which aids those who work with animals. The Office for Clinical Research Advancement (OCRA) is a central coordinating and support office for interdisciplinary biomedical and behavioral researchers across campus that engages, connects, and supports FSU research faculty, clinicians, and FSU communities in advancing medical discoveries to improve health outcomes.

Outside of the OVPR, the College of Medicine's Translational Science Laboratory houses a broad array of biomedical instruments including mass spectrometers, a high through-put DNA sequencer and biophysical macromolecular characterization devices. The FSU Magnetic Resonance Imaging Facility is also housed in Medicine. This facility contains a state-of-the-art Siemens Prisma MRI system being used primarily for brain imaging research.

Computing and information technology are widely used at Florida State University for both research and instruction. The University's Information Technology Services (ITS) manages a high-speed network that connects computers throughout the University to each other and to the world. ITS also provides wireless connectivity to the network from most locations on the FSU campus. In addition to the global Internet, Florida State University participates in the Florida LambdaRail and the National LambdaRail project, a special high capacity state and national network for academic and research purposes. The University maintains a shared high-performance computing system, the Research Computing Center. The current setup has 748 compute nodes and 14,092 CPU cores. The theoretical peak performance of the complete system is 393 TeraFlops. The RCC has recently added 1.5 PetaByte low-cost archival storage capabilities to the facility.

FSU maintains an Assurance (D16-00491) with the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare and adheres to standards prescribed in the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Care and Use of Laboratory Animals for all activities involving animals. Additionally, FSU is a USDA registered facility (58-R-0001) and complies with provisions of the Animal Welfare Act and Regulations for all activities involving regulated species. The FSU Animal Care and Use Program has been continuously accredited by AAALAC International since 2002.

The Commercialization team is responsible for the evaluation, protection, and commercialization of novel innovations and discoveries developed by FSU faculty and staff for the benefit of the University, the state of Florida, and the greater community. They provide research opportunities and services to faculty and staff through stewardship of the technology transfer process from research conception to market. The Commercialization team manages intellectual property (IP) in the form of patent, copyright, trademark, and know-how. The team will evaluate disclosures and inventions and determine if the IP should be protected by patent/copyright, whether it can be marketed to industry for further development (sponsored research), and license the IP for dissemination. The Commercialization team also assists researchers through the business plan development and startup process through the FSU FAST START program. 

The FSU Health Research Services (HRS) unit / Office for Clinical Research Advancement (OCRA) provides guidance, assistance, and resources to help faculty, staff, and students successfully navigate health and translational research processes at FSU and with its community healthcare partners.

HRS/OCRA also manages the FSU Clinical Research and Trials Unit (CRTU), a 2,200-square foot facility available to support health/clinical research and clinical trials in advancing the understanding, prevention and treatment of human diseases and health conditions. Collectively, services and personnel provided to FSU researchers include research design and study consultation; clinical research coordination; assistance with participant recruitment; biostatistical and data analysis; regulatory support; phlebotomy and other nurse services; specimen and sample storage; and medical oversight for applicable studies.

The research space has private exam rooms, interview/testing and consultation rooms, and vital signs/phlebotomy space with processing and specimen storage capabilities. Rooms can be arranged to accommodate specialized equipment for specific research studies. An open area provides flexible, multi-use space that can be reconfigured to accommodate different studies. The unit is equipped to be adaptive and supportive for a variety of clinical research needs.

Florida State University (FSU) has a Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) and related staffing, policies, standard operating procedures and electronic protocol management and IRB record system, within which program are included an internal Institutional Review Board (IRB) and the Office for Human Subjects Protection (OHSP). Pursuant to FSU policy (7-IRB-0) the HRPP and its key elements, IRB and OHSP operate under the auspices of the FSU Office for Research. Collectively the IRB and OHSP provide human research regulatory oversight for more than 3,600 active studies. These studies comprise wide range of social, behavioral and educational research as well as biomedical, health and other human sciences, including clinical trials, which reflect the extensive breadth and depth of FSU research and creative arts.

The FSU maintains an active Federalwide Assurance (FWA) agreement (FWA00000168) with the Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The FWA is recognized under federal law by other U.S. regulatory and sponsoring agencies for the purpose of indicating and documenting FSU’s adherence to applicable tribal, local, federal and international laws and ethical principals for the protection of human subjects from research risks. These laws include the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (“Common Rule”), as well as related laws that provide vulnerable human subjects with additional protection against research risks. Ethical principles to which FSU adheres are embodied in the Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research (“Belmont Report”).

In compliance with the Common Rule, other laws and the Belmont Report, the IRB and OHSP provide the required review and on-going oversight of human research, and the IRB is registered with OHRP and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to demonstrate that the IRB satisfies the qualifications for safeguarding the rights and welfare of human subjects (IORG0000263). Aside from human research internal to FSU, the IRB also serves as the IRB of record for other many other institutions engaged with FSU in cooperative research; the FSU IRB is prepared to serve as the Single IRB for cooperative research as may be required by federal law and study sponsors. In the discharge of its responsibilities, the IRB is composed of scientists, non-scientists and laypersons, including faculty and staff who are drawn from across FSU academic and other units as well as community members not affiliated with FSU but who represent the perspectives of the community from which human subjects may be drawn. Composition of the IRB is diverse with regard to race, gender, ethnicity and cultural background, and their academic backgrounds and affiliations reflect the nature and scope of FSU human research to ensure that the necessary experienced and expertise is brought to bear on the IRB’s review and on-going oversight of human research.

In accordance with applicable law, the IRB is also supported by OHSP staff, who provide a range of HRPP subject matter expertise, guidance, and pre- and well as post-review and compliance monitoring of IRB approved human research. OHSP maintains the regulatory documentation required for human research, and provides the research community with professional, administrative and technical support in the submission and review of their human research studies. The OHSP staff hold various professional IRB, human subjects, clinical research and health compliance certifications and completion of related HRPP training to demonstrate their advanced human research compliance knowledge, skills and abilities and participate in professional development in order to maintain and advance their credential. The OHSP staff also arrange for initial and continuing human research protections education and training for the FSU research community, including education and training provided by regulatory agencies and leading organizations in the field.

Selection as the Single Institutional Review Board

Should the FSU IRB be selected to serve as the Single IRB (sIRB) for non-exempt human research, the appropriate IRB reliance arrangement to document this selection and responsibility will be executed before human research may be conducted at a cooperative research site. Under a cooperative research arrangement, participating domestic sites will agree to rely on the FSU IRB; any domestic sites added after an award for which sIRB is required will be required to agree to this reliance arrangement unless they meet the federal regulatory criteria for exception to the policy. Provided below is an outline of FSU’s statement of sIRB compliance and qualifications, reliance agreement documentation plans, and the communication plan between the local sites, local IRB, lead site, and sIRB. Where FSU will rely upon an external sIRB, the converse will apply.

Reliance Agreements

Before initiating the study, each participating site will execute an IRB reliance agreement with the sIRB; the reliance agreement will designate the sIRB as well as clarify the roles and responsibilities of the sIRB and the site. FSU has significant experience processing, executing and exercising oversight for many different types of reliance agreements, and is a signatory to the SMART IRB Agreement and other cooperatives to reduce IRB regulatory burden. The OHSP will maintain a copy of all reliance documentation for which the FSU IRB has sIRB responsibility or for which FSU is a participating study site. This documentation will also be made available to the lead PI and all cooperative research sites relying on the sIRB.

Communication Plan

The FSU IRB uses an electronic protocol management system that is accessible online by FSU employees and agents (RAMP IRB) and by site PIs. All human research application materials must be submitted for human research regulatory review by the FSU PI or other FSU study team members designated by the PI, using the RAMP IRB system. Participating sites will provide necessary information or assurances to the FSU study team for submission to the FSU IRB for its review. The FSU OHSP office will communicate directly with the FSU study team as the proxy for all participating sites. Participating sites are required to follow their local procedures for dissemination of information and documentation (e.g., if the local IRB office or ancillary services require copies of the IRB approval). When appropriate, the FSU OHSP will communicate directly with participating site Human Research Protection Program offices.

The FSU study team, under the supervision of the lead PI, will provide coordination services in order to:

Coordinate communications with partnering sites:

  • Request and receive information and documentation from partnering sites
  • Develop template materials for review by the FSU IRB and for limited modification by participating sites
  • Submit materials from all sites to the FSU IRB and coordinate responses to any IRB queries
  • Provide documentation to participating sites

Participating sites will follow their own local institutional procedures to coordinate, collect and verify information such as:

  • Local context
  • Site variations in areas such as recruiting, informed consent, HIPAA, populations
  • Conflict of Interest disclosure and management
  • Completion of ancillary reviews
  • Training and qualifications of study team
  • Continuing Review or Closure information
  • Reportable Events

The lead PI will maintain a copy of this communication plan and any other communication plans that are developed. Copies will be made available to the participating sites as appropriate. Where FSU is the participating site, the above documentation and communication procedures will be followed by FSU, including the FSU study team.

Research Development (RD), a unit under the Office of Research, works to enhance the competitiveness of FSU researchers by providing quality proposal development and professional research advancement services and resources. RD staff offer discipline-specific support for researchers, including proposal identification and editing, and the facilitation of mock reviews. Additionally, RD provides support for faculty engaged in large/center-level multidisciplinary efforts. Research advancement activities include training for funding strategies, science communication, mentoring training, and new research methodologies. RD prioritizes early-career faculty by providing individualized support, targeted programming, and effective mentoring. Resources provided by the RD unit include a successful proposal database, an on-demand learning portal, boilerplate language, and agency-specific tools. The Collaborative Collision program, hosted by RD, facilitates networking among researchers across disciplines.

Collaborative Collision

The Collaborative Collision program was established by the Research Development (RD) unit within the Office of Research (formerly known as the Office of Proposal Development) in 2016. Its purpose is to foster connections among faculty members from diverse academic disciplines. These topic-driven events cover broad subject areas as well as more focused topics of interest. After each event, informational sites are created to allow researchers convenient access to relevant information.

As of July 2024, RD has successfully organized 18 events, with over 1,100 participants representing various colleges and most departments at FSU. External participants, including colleagues from Florida A&M University and the Mayo Clinic, as well as distinguished guests from funding agencies, policymakers, implementation experts, and members of the Tallahassee community, are often invited. Collaborative Collision events have featured keynote presentations by leaders from organizations such as the Department of Defense, the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the Library of Congress, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health. Starting in 2024, graduate students and post-docs are also welcome to attend, along with their research faculty partners.

FSU Research Mentor Academy

The FSU Research Mentor Academy, conducted by Research Development, promotes a culture of support for research mentoring and provides training in optimizing mentoring relationships for mentors at all levels of their research careers. Our training uses an evidence-based curriculum from the Center for the Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER), applying an interactive approach that allows participants to explore an intellectual framework for research mentoring within a community of their peers. This approach provides mentors with opportunities for reflection and a forum to solve mentoring dilemmas and share successful mentorship strategies and addresses guidelines regarding the preparation of mentors often necessary for training grants and programs. The training covers topics related to research mentoring relationships, such as: Aligning Expectations, Addressing Equity and Inclusion, Assessing Understanding, Fostering Independence, Maintaining Effective Communication, Promoting Professional Development, Cultivating Ethical Behaviors, Promoting Mentee Research Self-Efficacy, Enhancing Work-Life Integration, and Articulating Your Mentoring Philosophy and Action Plan.

Please reach out to r.goffalbritton@fsu.edu if you would like support with proposal language and programming for a grant funded program, including a letter of support.

Research Compliance, in collaboration with Research Development, the Graduate School, the College of Medicine, and the Office of Human Subjects Protection, offers multiple opportunities for training in the responsible conduct of research, including the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) online coursework to be completed immediately after hire. Research Compliance offers a Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) course that complies with NIH expectations. The training is a 5-week series of online interactive sessions and provides eight (8) hours of instruction and discussion.

For more information visit https://www.research.fsu.edu/research-compliance/rcr/

Here's a template that might be helpful for training grant or fellowship proposals: RCR template

Sponsored Research Administration (SRA), a unit under the purview of the Vice President for Research, is responsible for pre- and post-award administrative functions of the university for awards with public funding (federal, state, and local governments) and public funding that is flowed through private organizations. The SRA mission is to provide the university community with client-centered, professional, and appropriate administrative expertise to support the responsible management of sponsored projects. In carrying out this mission, our goal is to provide responsive administrative guidance and education for our constituents in order to facilitate Florida State University's teaching, research, and service missions.

Strategic Opportunity – Positioning Ourselves for Membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU)
Central to the FSU Strategic Plan is to gain membership in the Association of American Universities (AAU), an elite group of America’s leading research universities.


Strategic Opportunity – Research, Education and Patient Care: FSU Health Will Improve Health Outcomes—And Change Lives
FSU Health will work with patients across a broad spectrum of specialties, transforming how our community accesses world-class health care and measurably improving health outcomes in the region


Goal 1 – Expanding Research and Academic Excellence
Objective 1.1 - Increase the recruitment, development, and retention of high-impact, nationally and internationally recognized faculty to strategically maximize FSU’s potential across all disciplines.
Objective 1.2 - Catalyze translational scholarship, arts, and research that will address grand challenges and enrich people’s lives.
Objective 1.3 - Expand and promote the arts, performance, humanities, and creative activities of our faculty and staff.
Objective 1.4 - Build upon and create graduate opportunities that transcend and transform traditional disciplines.


Goal 2 – Ensuring Student Success On-Campus and Beyond
Objective 2.1 - Enhance curricular practices that foster engaged learning and robust outcomes.
Objective 2.2 - Create an environment that encourages healthy behaviors and wellness.
Objective 2.3 - Expand and strengthen academic advising and student support services.
Objective 2.4 - Bolster students’ co-curricular and career development opportunities.


Goal 3 – Nurturing and Inspiring FSU’s Entrepreneurial Spirit
Objective 3.1 - Cultivate an ecosystem that prioritizes and embraces creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial behavior in all endeavors.
Objective 3.2 - Translate creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial ventures and endeavors for the public good via commercialization and collaboration.


Goal 4 – Committing to Inclusive Excellence and Civil Discourse
Objective 4.1 - Improve efforts to expand diversity while creating rich experiences and opportunities for all populations within a respectful and united community.
Objective 4.2 - Increase international engagement and cultural competencies for students, faculty and staff.
Goal 5 – Enhancing Our Brand to Reflect Institutional Excellence
Objective 5.1 - Focus the FSU brand to bolster our reputation, stakeholder and partner relationships, and quality.
Objective 5.2 - Leverage growing and increasingly diversified financial resources to strategically invest in emerging areas of institutional excellence.
Objective 5.3 - Become a national leader in operational excellence in the administration of the university and its resources to empower innovation, sustainability, and resilience on campus and beyond.


Note: The Florida Board of Governors approved the 2023-2027 Strategic Plan on March 28, 2023. More information at: strategicplan.fsu.edu

Institutes and centers are university entities established to coordinate intra- and interinstitutional research, service, and/or educational/training activities that supplement and extend existing instruction, research, and service at the universities. In some cases, institutes and centers are established to provide the infrastructure needed to coordinate support activities across the State University System.

For boilerplate language for the various Center and Institutes at FSU, see current listing here: https://provost.fsu.edu/institutes-centers/current-listing 

Let us know if you need assistance with locating information to describe any of these centers or institutes in your grant proposals.

The Florida State University Center for Academic & Professional Development (CAPD) is the continuing education and academic program outreach entity for the campus, the community, and students. Housed in the new Augustus B. Turnbull III Florida State Conference Center, the experienced staff of CAPD support a variety of learning opportunities as they provide services to colleges, departments, and students on campus and online. 

The FSU Center for the Advancement of Teaching provides a space for collegial exchange about teaching and learning, bringing together faculty at all levels and across disciplines, to hone their expertise in facilitating learning and to promote our collective project of providing our students with a preeminent education. We curate research on how humans learn and provide programming and services to help our colleagues apply it in their own classroom practice. CAT promotes student success at FSU by supporting the faculty in the important and challenging work of crafting transformative learning experiences, and by fostering a culture in which effective teaching is valued and rewarded.

CreateFSU allows faculty, students and staff to host and publish websites related to their digital research and pedagogy projects using cutting-edge and industry-standard web publishing tools. Created to supplement FSU’s existing web-hosting services for faculty, students and departments, CreateFSU provides researchers and instructors with the ability to build a digital presence for projects spanning from interactive maps and visualizations to collaborative course blogs and digital museum exhibits.

Departmental and college-level resources are generally managed by local administration within your unit. Please contact our office at least one workweek before you need information about a department of college, and we will work with you to locate that content.

The Office of Faculty Development and Advancement (OFDA) works to foster a collegial and inclusive work environment that enables all faculty members to succeed in research, creative works, teaching and service. To help faculty develop a sustainable professionalism, OFDA offers writing accountability groups, career planning consultations, and strategy and support for faculty awards and fellowship applications. Additionally, faculty have online and on-demand access to mentoring and resources from the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity (NCFDD). Many faculty, not just junior faculty, use this resource (free through our institutional membership) to locate academic coaches, obtain accountability peers, attend writing challenges, and develop core professional skills that help them to thrive in academia.  

Strozier Library and the seven other campus libraries contain more than 4 million volumes, of which more than 1.1 million are available electronically. The Library subscribes to 1,064 databases and 120,000 electronic journals. The Library is a member of the Association of Research Libraries, the Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, the Center for Research Libraries, the Florida Virtual Campus/Florida Academic Library Service Cooperative and is the designated Florida service hub for the Digital Public Library of America. Through the library user information system, students and faculty have access to services like 3D Printing, the Education Index Retrospective & Education Full Text, ERIC (EBSCO, OCLC WorldCat Discovery, and ProQuest), Educator’s Reference Complete, SAGE Research Methods Online, Dissertations & Theses (PQDT; Global and FSU- specific), and other indexes. These resources will be available to faculty, staff, and students on this project.

Please reach out to rd@fsu.edu, if you would like support with proposal language and/or programming guidance for a grant-funded mentoring program, such as planning/brainstorming ideas (collaboration with other campus research mentoring programs), a letter of support, or support with supplemental documents related to research mentoring (e.g., NSF Graduate Student/Postdoctoral Scholar Mentor Plan).

PI and Co-PI Office Space: The principal investigator and co-principal investigators have private, adequate office space and technological accommodations on the university campus in which to conduct all research, programmatic, and administrative activities related to the proposal. Additionally, The PI, Co-PIs, and faculty/staff instrumental in completing these activities have access to university conference rooms and meeting spaces. All offices, conference rooms, and meeting spaces are equipped with up-to-date computers/laptops, phones, video conferencing capability, and current, licensed software. All equipment and software are routinely serviced by FSU Information Technology Services and the Office of Research Technical Operations Staff.

Laboratory Space is generally specific to the individual PI or other participating team member. Some Core Facilities include the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) facility, Laboratory Animal Resources (LAR) and Biomedical Research Facility (BRF), and the Clinical Research and Trials Unit (CRTU).

Conference Facilities:

  • Augustus Turnbull Florida State Conference Center is a full-service center for hosting academic conferences as well as government meetings, non-profit, business, and community events, association programs, corporate seminars, and professional development events. All areas are equipped with state-of-the-art A/V equipment.
  • Donald L. Tucker Civic Center at Florida State University is a multi-purpose indoor arena located on the Florida State University campus. The center features a 12,500-seat arena and over 54,000 sq. ft. of meeting and exhibition space.
  • FSU Alumni Center provides space for both smaller meetings and larger events. With 5,897 sq. ft. of meeting space, the Center contains a conference room, a seminar room, and a grand ballroom space that seats 300. All areas are equipped with state-of-the-art A/V equipment.
  • FSU Student Union The Student Union is one of FSU’s newest facilities. It provides 300,000 feet of space that includes 5 large ballrooms (that can open to one 15,000 sq. ft. space) as well as two conference rooms for smaller events.

The Office of Accessibility Services (OAS) works with Florida State University students to create an accessible and inclusive environment by identifying, minimizing, and where possible, eliminating barriers to participation for students with disabilities.  Providing services to more than 5000 students, OAS creates an environment of success through the provision of academic, housing, and dining accommodations, testing support, assistive technologies, and space for students to ensure they feel like a valued part of the FSU community.

The Office of Digital Learning (ODL) supports student academic achievement in technology-mediated learning environments.  The office serves as a steward of distance education at FSU, providing leadership, policy guidance, faculty support and development, and other resources.  It helps online teaching and learning take flight through online course design, online program development, training and workshops, learning technologies, and testing services. 

Funded by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the UF-FSU Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program hub is one of two hubs in Florida, and is part of a national network of more than 50 hubs nationwide. The CTSA Program is designed to develop innovative solutions that will improve the efficiency, quality and impact of the process for turning observations in the laboratory, clinic and community into interventions that improve the health of individuals and the public. A CTSA Program hub is an integrated research and training environment for translational and clinical science that catalyzes the development, demonstration and dissemination of methods and technologies that dramatically improve efficiency and quality across the translational research spectrum. Translational science at Florida State University engages communities in developing and testing biobehavioral interventions across the translational spectrum to address sociocultural determinants of health.
https://ctsa.research.fsu.edu/about/

FSU's CTSA Programs include Translational Workforce Development, Community Engagement, and an Institutionally-Supported Translational Health Research Seed Grant Program. Under the Translational Workforce Development Program fall two additional programs: the FSU K2R Scholar Program and Team Science. The FSU CTSA Program is based in the College of Medicine’s Division of Research and Graduate Programs with a Steering Committee with membership from 7 Colleges.

Additional information on CTSA Programs can be found here: https://ctsa.research.fsu.edu/programs/

The Biostatistics, Informatics, and Research Design (BIRD) Program is a resource for research design support and consulting services from health data experts. The BIRD Program provides a central location to access support services related to human health data science, informatics, and clinical and translational research design, including:

  • Clinical and translational research design
  • Biomedical informatics database access (e.g., OneFlorida Data Trust, i2b2)
  • Informatics and data science support
  • Quantitative data analysis
  • Qualitative data analysis
  • Access to support services for health data collection

Additional information on BIRD can be found here: https://ctsa.research.fsu.edu/resources/bird/

Note: to be updated further in Fall 2024