Igniting Research Collaborations (IRC) seeks to increase interdisciplinary scientific engagement and leverage the breadth of expertise across campus to tackle important problems in the Commonwealth.

Goal & Purpose:

• UK is 1 of 8 US universities with undergrad, graduate, professional, medical, engineering & agricultural programs – distinct opportunity for collaborative research
• Foster new collaborations across colleges (new collaboration means no publications and no funding history together)
• Diverse expertise leads to innovative advances
• Faculty from all UK colleges invited to apply
• Previous awardees can apply

The IRC Pilot must be a NEW collaboration of faculty from at least 2 different colleges. The maximum budget amount is $50,000. Typical awards are in the $25,000 - $30,000 range. Salary for faculty is not allowed. The budget period is for six months.

Review will be conducted by ADRs or designated Chairs of participating colleges.

2024 IRC Funding Results

2023 IRC Funding Results

2022 IRC Funding Results

2020 IRC Funding Results

2019 IRC Funding Results

2018 IRC Funding Results

Application Deadline: April 8, 2024

Please submit the following in a single pdf to the VPR Funding Portal: https://ris.uky.edu/pdo/fundingportal/

• IRC cover page (available after log-in on the submission portal)

• Abstract (30 lines maximum; Arial 11 pt font, minimum 0.5 inch margins)

• Research plan (2 pages)

• NIH-style biosketch or abbreviated CV for each investigator (5 pages maximum)

• Budget/justification (1 page)

Monday, February 12, 2024

• Microfluidic oxygenators for artificial lungs: Engineering the blood-oxygen interface for critical pulmonary support

  • Presenters: Christine Trinkle (Pigman College of Engineering), Gosia Chwatoko (Pigman College of Engineering), Jamie Sturgill (College of Medicine) and Suresh Keshavamurthy (College of Medicine)

• Insects, informatics, and illustrations: A new approach to visually representing anatomical knowledge in ecological and taxonomic databases

  • Presenters: Melissa Clarkson (College of Medicine) and Julian Dupuis (Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment)

• Aphasia spark: Aphasia lab zine project

  • Presenters: Rose Winter Phong (College of Fine Arts), Christen Page (College of Health Sciences), Erin Hester (College of Communication and Information) and David Wischer (College of Fine Arts)

Tuesday, February 13, 2024

• Intergenerational interactions: Mapping women's mental health through movement and creativity

  • Presenters: Anthony Bardo (College of Arts and Sciences), Amy Kostelic (Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment) and Susan Thiel (College of Fine Arts)

• Exploring the motivational climate and communication amongst trauma survivors

  • Presenters: Jacob Higgins (College of Nursing), Sarah Geegan (College of Communication and Information) and Erin Hester (College of Communication and Information)

• Privacy preserving protest dynamics with social media images

  • Presenters: Addullah-Al-Zubaer Imran (Pigman College of Engineering), Nazmus Sakib (Lewis Honors College) and Sen-Ching Samson Cheung (Pigman College of Engineering)

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

• Nocardioform placentitis in the equine breeding industry: Characterization and natural product analysis of the probable infectious agents

  • Presenters: Khaled Mahmoud (College of Pharmacy), Erdal Erol (Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment) and Steven Van Lanen (College of Pharmacy)

• Development of a 3D microfluidic electroporation technology for advancing cell therapy

  • Presenters: Guigen Zhang (Pigman College of Engineering), Mark Evers (College of Medicine) and Sheng Tong (Pigman College of Engineering)

• Predictive analysis enabled through virtual reality

  • Presenters: Savio Poovathingal (Pigman College of Engineering) and Chad Eby (College of Fine Arts)

Thursday, February 15, 2024

• Development of a deep learning-based CT acquisition technique for radiation dose and image quality

  • Presenters: Abdullah-Al-Zubaer Imran (Pigman College of Engineering) and Jie Zhang (College of Medicine)

• Mechanisms of anti-Porphyromonas gingivalis activity of statins

  • Presenters: Oelisa Mireille Andirankaja (College of Dentistry) and Oleg Tsodikov (College of Pharmacy)

• Marijuana and invasive fungal disease in immunocompromised patients

  • Presenters: Matthew Duprey (College of Pharmacy), Jayani Jayawardhana (College of Public Health), Val Adams (College of Pharmacy) and Chris Delcher (College of Pharmacy) and Daniela Moga (College of Pharmacy)

Friday, February 16, 2024

• A bottom-up approach for sustainable cultivated meat production

  • Presenters: Ramkumar Annamalai (Pigman College of Engineering) and Tyler Barzee (Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment)

• EpicMare: A routine screening blood test to predict parturition date and gestational complications in mares

  • Presenters: Carlos Rodriguez Lopez (Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment), James MacLeod (Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment) and Chenglong Ye (College of Arts and Sciences)

• Improving image quality for better surgical planning and computational tool development

  • Presenters: Jonathan Wenk (Pigman College of Engineering), Liisa Bergmann (College of Medicine), Sam Tyagi (College of Medicine) and Ryan King (College of Medicine)