LSI Research Groups: Call for Proposals

The Objective

To nucleate and support Research Groups (PI-led, thematic collaborations) with shared research interests in order to advance the research itself, to form new collaborations, to establish the groundwork for larger future funding applications, and to build a more cohesive community in the LSI.

The Rationale

Researchers do not work in a vacuum and many of us are not fully aware of what else is going on on our floor, let alone the whole LSI or UBC more broadly. By encouraging more interactions with like-minded people, the goal here is to help raise the level of research across the LSI by making all of us stronger. An additional intended purpose of Research Groups as PI-led, thematic collaborations focused on research and team grant development

how to apply

The Ask

The LSI is inviting researchers to propose themes for new research groups (RGs), along with the kinds of activities that they envision organizing.

The Gestalt expectation:

That the groups become other than the sum of their parts. That is that, through the activities of the RGs, the individual researchers can all see an enhancement of their own research activities that they would not have achieved if they had just gone about their business. This can span a huge range of outcomes, some examples of which include:

Success in securing more research funding
Joint supervision of trainees
Feelings of more fulfilling careers, less loneliness, more connectedness
Greater awareness of opportunities
Unconventional mentoring relationships (e.g., by someone who is not your supervisor)
Cross-pollination of ideas related to a specific research area

This could be achieved through many different mechanisms:

Regular research presentations/meetings
Research retreats
Social activities
“Dragon’s Den”-style proposals

The People

An RG must:

Be led by a faculty member (due to UBC requirements around responsibility for approving and spending funds)
Contain at least three LSI PIs
Contain at least five people with an LSI affiliation of some sort (faculty, staff, trainee).
Support at least three LSI units, with a “unit” being defined as a canonical PI-led research lab or one of the core facilities.

Additionally:

An RG can also include people from outside the LSI and even from outside UBC
There is no upper limit on the number of people in an RG. While RGs must have a faculty lead, they do not have to be primarily PI-focused.

The Offer

The LSI will contribute to RGs in several ways:

A cash contribution toward expenses. These must be eligible UBC expenses and the amount of money will depend on how many RGs are approved. The funding per RG will also depend on how many LSI-affiliated people are part of the RG.
Core facility training. Depending on how the RG is set up and what its goals are, the LSI could offer free training courses in its cores.
Administrative support. The LSI does not have the capacity to run all the RGs but our staff will advise on organizing events and/or navigating UBC systems/rules.
For all RGs, a total of $15,000 for the 2027 fiscal year (April 1, 2026 - March 31, 2027) will be available to distribute. Each RG can receive up to $2k.

Applications for the first funding year (April 1, 2026 - March 31, 2027) will be accepted on a rolling basis, until RG funds are depleted.

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