Deadline: 15-Mar-25
Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) and Utility Arborist Association (UAA) is inviting applications for Utility Arborist Research Fund Grant Program.
Tree Research and Education Endowment Fund (TREE Fund) and Utility Arborist Association (UAA) established the Utility Arborist Research Fund (UARF) in 2010 to finance work with real importance and benefit to utility tree care professionals. In 2017, the UARF endowment reached its $1.0 million activation goal, 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. Given the immense scope of annual utility arboriculture work on a global basis, if UARF-funded research can generate even a 1.0% reduction in tree-related outages, customer complaints, vegetation management complexity or emergency tree work, the financial, public relations, and worker safety returns on investment will be immense.
Topics
- For 2025, TREE Fund and UAA are seeking UARF proposals guided by the prioritized summary of research topics polled from the 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); and
- Regulatory Compliance (including training and process improvement).
Funding Information
- A total of $50,000 is available for award in 2054; 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.
Ineligible Funding
- While TREE Fund and UAA encourage applications that are aligned with these priorities, both organizations also understand that social, exploratory and other research questions may arise. TREE Fund and UAA are thus open to evaluating any proposal related to vegetation management in the utility industry. UARF may not be used to fund to following types of research:
- Grants to individuals;
- Projects that are primarily municipal tree surveys or assessments;
- Tree planting programs;
- Studies of individual tree species for the primary purpose of agricultural or timber/forest planting yield;
- Commercial tree- or soil-related product testing primarily for the benefit of the company that manufactures the product.
Selection Criteria
- Staff will screen all applications for applicant eligibility, adherence to submission directions (including character counts), alignment with the TREE Fund mission, and compliance with minimum requirements. Proposals meeting these criteria are then forwarded to the TREE Fund’s Research and Education Committee for a more thorough and competitive evaluation. 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
For more information, visit TREE Fund.