2025-2026 Internal Funding Bulleting

Authors

• UNO Office of Research and Creative Activity, University of Nebraska at Omaha

Document Type

Report

Publication Date

8-2026

Abstract

The University of Nebraska at Omaha is committed to exceptional education, groundbreaking research, and the life-long success of our students, alumni, and faculty. The 2025-2026 Academic Year brought many exciting opportunities for us to invest in a multitude of funding programs that promote research and creative activity. This year’s internal funding programs provided over $850,000 in awards for students and faculty. Projects from a wide variety of disciplines reflect the UNO community’s scholarly interests, including utilizing a virtual reality headset to reimagine scenic painting for theater productions, exploring the factors influencing the adoption of generative AI tools in U.S. local governments, studying the foundation of medieval banking, investigating prescribed fire impacts on bat activity in tallgrass prairies, and designing and creating a hand produced book of wood type prints. In 2025-2026, the Fund for Undergraduate Scholarly Experiences (FUSE) and Graduate Research and Creative Activity GRACA) programs funded 154 students to complete faculty mentored research and creative activity projects. We invite you to save the date for the 19th Annual Student Research and Creative Activity Fair on March 5, 2027, to celebrate the scholarly and creative work of these students. Faculty internal funding opportunities and awards through ORCA provide support to develop new contacts and cooperate with academic peers locally, nationally, and internally. UNO faculty research and creative activity are used to address real-world issues and are presented in peer-reviewed literature and around the world at meetings, conferences, and performances. Our programs give faculty the opportunity to attract resources from outside the university to sustain scholarly activities throughout the course of a career at UNO. ORCA Faculty Fellows Dr. Christopher Burcal and Dr. Robin Gandhi have joined our office to provide support for our programs for faculty and students. Drs. Burcal and Gandhi will promote ORCA and work with faculty and students to increase participation across UNO’s broad disciplines. This coming year, we hope to continue expanding support and activities for students and faculty. One exciting example of this expansion is extending our Research and Creative Activity High School Internship Program via partnership with EPSCoR’s Young Nebraska Scientist (YNS) program. Our program funds high school interns to work on faculty members' research and/or creative endeavors and rewards faculty for the mentoring they provide their interns. This summer, we placed sixteen high schoolers with UNO faculty to complete an internship.

Recommended Citation

Office of Research and Creative Activity, UNO, "2025-2026 Internal Funding Bulleting" (2026). Internal Funding Newsletters. 14.
https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/orcafundingnewsletters/14

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