Utility Arborist Research Fund Grant Program

Seeking UARF proposals guided by the prioritized summary of research topics polled from our wider membership, prioritized as follows, with equal consideration given to these topics:

• Employee, Contractor and Public Safety (including training relevance and quality, and training frequency)
• Service Reliability (including tree failure and tree worker experience)
• Regulatory Compliance (including training and process improvement)

but also open to evaluating any proposal related to vegetation management in the utility industry.

Prospective applicants can be sure that reviewers will place highest emphasis on:

• Prior record of accomplishment by the investigative team (Scientists early in their research careers may wish to include others with more research experience as active co-investigators or advisors.)
• Potential contribution of the project to the arboricultural industry
• Approach, including statement of hypotheses and experimental design
• Dissemination plan to the scientific community and to tree care professionals

TREE Fund does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, gender, sexual orientation, disability or national or ethnic origin. Current trustees of TREE Fund or any member of the family of any such trustee are ineligible to receive grants from TREE Fund.

Countries of origin: any national or ethnic origin

Programmes: Any program that supports the discovery and dissemination of new knowledge in arboriculture and urban forestry.

A total of $50,000 is available for award in 2024; the minimum award considered will be $10,000, the maximum $50,000, so that one to five grants may be awarded, subject to receipt of compliant applications. Work funded by UARF is expected to be completed within one to three years of award.

Established in 2010, the UARF endowment reached its USD 1.0 million activation goal in 2017, and the first grant under this program was awarded in 2018.

TREE Fund manages the UARF endowment and administers all research grants awarded, while UAA’s Research Committee advises TREE Fund with respect to research priorities.

Budget elements, including:

• Institutional Compensation, Stipends and Benefits
• Travel and Transportation
• Equipment (e.g. Vehicles, Growth Chambers, Etc.)
• Other Materials and Supplies (e.g. Paper, Ink, Etc.)
• Contract Labor (Consultants, Speakers, Etc.)
• Institutional Overhead (Maximum 10%)
• Other/Miscellaneous
• Cash or In-Kind Funding from Other Sources (Minimum 10%; unrecovered institutional overhead may be applied to meet this minimum)

Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) and Utility Arborist Association (UAA) established the Utility Arborist Research Fund (UARF).

1 to 5 grants

Application: TREE Fund will accept completed applications only between January 15 and March 15. To apply, send an email containing a brief Letter of Inquiry (LOI) of no more than 100 words describing your project title and concept to treefund@treefund.org before March 1, ideally linking your concept to one of the defined priority areas. Your LOI must clearly identify the Principal Investigator and Institution who will be contracted for the work should your application be approved. TREE Fund will evaluate whether your LOI concept meets all of our application criteria and is deemed to have a reasonable possibility of success given the year’s research priorities.

If your LOI is approved, TREE Fund will send you a numbered application form for your use. You may not apply without such a numbered application form, and the number of applications so provided each grant making cycle may be limited. TREE Fund determinations on whether a LOI meets the application criteria are final and not negotiable.

Upon completion of this application form, you will save a Word version for your records, then create a PDF version of the completed document with title in the format “PI Surname, Grant Program, Application Number” (e.g. “Smith, UARF, #20-023”), and email it as an attachment to treefund treefund.org with a PDF of PI and Co-PI (if applicable) CVs.