Every faculty member or a researcher who has a Ph.D. degree or a Master degree may apply for a seed project. In particular, Junior faculty members and researchers and newly joining faculty members are highly encouraged to apply for a seed project fund.

Before applying to a seed project, it is highly recommended to read and understand The Bylaws of Research Project One of the objectives of the University behind funding seed projects is that they must serve the VISION2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is important to make sure that the outcomes of your project proposal serve the initiative of the VISION2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Investigators are invited to identify the related initiatives from the VISION2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and incorporate the mapping with the outcomes in the submitted proposal.

The submission is now open until June 30, 2024 The submission system will close by the deadline.
Then, the proposal will be reviewed within 2-3 weeks. We should be able to start the projects by August 1, 2024

Please consider the following general guidelines:

• Make sure that publisher/journal is not in the non-eligible journals & publishers list.

• The project must have at least a PI or Co-PI from a research lab at PSU.

• If a faculty outside a lab would like to apply for a seed fund, he should contact RIC in advance for prior approval.

• The PI must have his previous projects completed and closed. In case this criterion is not satisfied, and the PI wants to submit, he must notify RIC and CRD about the reason for not being able to complete and close the project and how long it would take to do so.

• The budget per lab should not exceed 30K. As we have 450K as the total budget, we must ensure that the total fund for all accepted projects does not exceed this ceiling. We may not be able to accept all project proposals or would need to cut the budget if the total exceeds 450K.

• It is not recommended to be the PI of two projects. In case, it happens, it must be justified. We try to give a chance to several researchers to be PIs.

• The budget is intended to cover the equipment, material, and hardware/software resources needed to conduct the project.

  • Please note: The cost for equipment and tools does not include standard office devices such as laptops, mobile phones, typical printers, or general-purpose equipment. Only specialized tools directly related to the research will be considered for funding. Approval will depend on the equipment's relevance and necessity to the project’s research objectives.

  Before requesting new resources, please check if these are available at PSU or not through these links AVAILABLE RESOURCES. By the way, SPSS is available with a Premium license.

• As the project will be handled by labs, and each lab has researchers, it is not recommended to pay for external human resources except in extreme cases. Labor costs may be covered in exceptional circumstances where the labor directly contributes to the technical or scientific aspects of the project, such as tasks like 3D printing, circuit design, data collection, and other technical support. However, labor costs will not be covered for activities related to co-authorship or non-technical roles. Approval will be at the discretion of the funding authority and must be justified as essential to the research objectives. If external expertise is substantially needed, please clarify the need well in the proposal.

• The lab leader may communicate these guidelines to his/her lab members if they intend to apply for a seed project.

• Collaboration between labs is recommended for inter-disciplinary research.

• In case of any query or suggestion, please contact us at research@psu.edu.sa.

The expected outcomes would likely be:

1. A moderate-scale data collection, potentially involving surveys, interviews, or small-scale experiments. It provides resources for more systematic data analysis, which could lead to meaningful insights, though perhaps not as large or comprehensive as with a larger budget.

2. The results could be published in at least one pure-research lab ISI journal. Developing a preliminary prototype, model, or framework, especially in applied fields, which could be tested and improved upon in future research is an expected outcome.

• Download the Research Project Proposal Template.

IMPORTANT NOTE: In case the research proposal is related to human sciences or requires data collection using surveys, then the investigator has to take approval from the Instituitional Review Board (IRB).

• Write your project proposal: all the required information must be duly filled out in the project proposal form. Missing information may lead to reject or delay the processing of your submission.

• Submit your project proposal through EasyChair.

Make sure to use your PSU email to create an account on EasyChair. An account created with an email different from PSU email will not be considered.

• Submission must be made in PDF Format

• Make sure that the budget does not exceed 30,000 SAR, and the duration of the project is equal or less than 12 months.

• The payment of human resources should not exceed 5000 SAR per project and it will be through PSU Accounting office using online payment transfer.

The project proposal is submitted through EasyChair to RIC. RIC makes an initial check on the proposal. In case of any issue, RIC contacts back the investigators to address the issues before proceeding further. If no issues are found on the proposal, RIC forwards the proposal to the College Research Director (CRD) no later than 48 hours from the submission time.

The College Research Director (CRD) is responsible for managing the review of the proposal. In case of a conflict of interest (CRD has a close or conflicting relation with the investigators), The College Dean assigns another faculty member from the respective college to manage the review process.

The CRD or his replacement needs to find appropriate reviewers for the project proposal. For the case of seed projects, the proposals can be reviewed internally within the college or Prince Sultan University. The review process should not exceed three weeks since the proposal is submitted to the CRD. At least two reviews are needed for every proposal. In case of delays exceeding three weeks, the investigators may contact their respective CRD or RIC to know about the status of their submission by sending an email to research@psu.edu.sa.

Once the reviews are received, the CRD forwards the proposal and the review to the College Research Committee, for final check and approval about the decision of acceptance of rejection, within 10 days maximum since the reviews are entirely received.

The CRD then submit through EasyChair the final recommendation of College Research Committee to RIC, which will send a notification to the authors through EasyChair. The whole process should complete within 30 days since the submission of the proposal.

There are three possible states of the review of the proposal:

• Accept: The research proposal is accepted for funding. The contract has to be signed with the researchers from the College Research Committee through the College Research Director. A copy of the contract has to be submitted to RIC.

• Revision Required: The proposal proposal requires to undergo a major revision before being considered for acceptance according to the reviewers comments. The investigator is given 15 days to amend their proposal and submit again for a second review round. Failing to address the reviewers' comments, the project proposal will be rejected in the second review round.

• Reject: The research proposal is denied for publications based on the comments of the reviewers. The investigators have the right to submit a rebuttal letter to RIC within one week from receiving the reject notification. A committee will be formed to review the rebuttal letter, and the final decision will be submitted to the investigators.

If your project is accepted, please perform the following:

1. Coordinate with your College Research Director to sign your seed project contract. The contract is available for download in the following link: Research Project Contract

   
   

   NOTE: The convention of the grant number is PROGRAM-COLLEGE-YEAR-UNIQUEID. So it can be: COVID19-DES-2020-{EASYCHAIRNUMBER}.

2. Add the details of your seed project request in the Funded PSU Research Projects Information Form . This is needed for statistical purposes. Your seed project cannot be processed by RIC if the information is not provided. You will need to upload your contract and your proposal.

3. Then, submit an official request through your CRD in the college for getting the first installment.

If you have any consultant and research assistant who is paid compensation through a PSU-funded project (seed project, technology development project) then he must sign a contract with the lab leader before starting the project. The contract must be approved by the College Dean and then by the RIC Director to be eligible for payment at the end of the project.

The process is as follows:

• The lab leader defines the contract with the research assistant/consultant working on the seed project and receiving compensation. The contract form is available for download in the following link: Research Assistance/Consultation Contract.

• After completing the missing contract clauses, the lab leader signs the contract with the research assistant/consultant. Note that these signatures of both parties will not be effective until all approvals and signatures are provided by the below parties (College Dean and then RIC Director).

• The signed contract must be sent to the College Dean through the College Research Director for the Dean’s approval.

• When the signed contract is approved by the College Dean, it must be forwarded to the Director of RIC for final approval. Once approved, the lab leader will be notified of the approved contract and must submit this contract with the final report to claim the payment of the research assistant/consultant. The lab leader finally needs to submit the approved contract through the following RIC Form: PSU Research Fellow & Consultation Contracts

NOTE: The payment of human resources (i.e., research assistant and consultant) is made only with the condition that the seed project is successfully completed and the final report is approved.

The seed project will be evaluated in two steps.

• After Six Months: A mid-way report will be sent to the CRC about the progress made. No review will be performed for the mid-way report, but just a simple reporting of progress to the respective college.

  mid-way report template will be provided

• After Completion (12 months): Once the project is completed, it will be submitted through EasyChair to RIC for final review. The final report will be forwaded to the CRD to manage the review process. The final results will be notified to the investigators upon reception of the review.

A report must be submitted:

• Final Technical Report

The objective of the project closure report is that the PI gets a clearance that his project is completed and to request the last installment of the project which contains the budgets to be paid for human resources including research assistants, consultants, students, etc., according to the RIC bylaws.

All the requirements of the project have to be satisfied and reported to the College Research Community (CRC) for final approval.

The report consists of:

• (Part 1) The final financial details and Technical Report,

• (Part 2) The bank details of the research assistants and their deserved amount to be transferred to their bank account through the university accounting office, and

• (Part 3) The equipment clearance that confirms the return of the project equipment to the college/lab.

After returning the project equipment to the lab. The project PI has to fill this All-in-One Project Closure Report which must be signed by the CRD and the dean of the college (Part 4), besides the following items:

• A copy of the signed project contract.

• A copy of the approved proposal of the project.

• A letter issued from the College Dean Office requesting the final installment/Stating Closing the Project of the project and RA payments.

When these documents are ready and signed, Please handle them physically to the RIC office or simply email them at research@psu.edu.sa.

Once your closure report is approved, you will receive an official email for the clerance of your project.