Research Development
Helping to grow research capacity, collaboration, and competitiveness
COMPETITVE INTELLIGENCE
What Is Competitive Intelligence?
Competitive Intelligence (CI) is the ethical, structured analysis of information to support better research decisions. In Research Development, CI helps turn information into insight so faculty can better understand sponsors, funding programs, and the research landscape before committing significant time to a proposal. CI focuses on specific questions and decisions, not just information gathering.Â
CI support follows a consistent approach:
- Clarify the question and decision context
- Analyze relevant information, with awareness of limitations
- Translate findings into insight, not just observations
- Deliver concise, decision‑focused outputs
What Does CI Support?
The CI pillar focuses on core activities that directly support faculty research planning and proposal development.
1. Finding Funding Opportunities
CI supports faculty awareness through:
- Targeted Alerts and curated opportunity lists
- Customized funding searches with Pivot Database
- Creating ongoing searches for faculty to be notified of new relevant opportunities
The focus is on relevant, aligned opportunities, not broad or generic listings.
2. Internal and External Research Data Requests
CI supports data requests related to UCF research activity, including:
- Institutional descriptions and reports
- Awards data and trend analysis on sponsors or programs
- Research-funding related trends and forecasts
These insights help inform strategic decisions and proposal planning.
3. Honorific Awards
CI supports faculty honorific awards by:
- Identifying relevant honorific award opportunities
- Providing background on sponsors and selection patterns
- Supporting strategic planning for nominations
This work focuses on information and insight, complementing broader recognition efforts.
4. Data Integrity and Research Analytics
The CI team supports data quality and consistency across UCF research analytics by:
- Identifying gaps or limitations in available data
- Suggesting improvements to data resources for improved analysis and reporting
- Ensuring analyses are transparent and appropriately contextualized
This ensures CI insights are reliable and well‑understood.
How is CI Useful for Faculty Researchers?
Faculty can use CI to:
- Understand what a sponsor is likely to fund
- See how competitive proposals are positioned
- Compare their work to peer institutions
- Identify strengths, gaps, and opportunities
- Reduce uncertainty when deciding whether and how to pursue an opportunity
The goal is actionable insight, not more information.
RESOURCES
UCF Facts
Details about UCF enrollment and broad characteristics, activities, and impacts. Updated annually.
Scholar Expertise Portal
Searchable tool to find researchers at UCF based on research keywords, with results showing relevant scholarship, awards, projects, and collaborations.
UCF Rankings Information
See UCF national rankings for various programs and areas.
Interactive Facts Dashboards
 Searchable tool to drill down into a large number of data sources about UCF, including student characteristics (down to program level and spanning enrollment, retention, and graduation) as well as other data about UCF.Â
Funder Tool Kits
Public Access Initiative
Federal agencies partner to support the White House’s Open Science mandate that by 2025, all peer reviewed publications and associated data resulting from federally-funded research be made freely available upon date of publication. The NSF Public Access Repository has peer-reviewed papers and other products of NSF-funded research.