Opportunity

The Collaborations between Artists and Scientists or Engineers fund is designed to encourage collaborations between faculty and scholars in the arts and those in the natural sciences or engineering to promote synergistic innovations, allowing experts in seemingly unrelated fields to unify and expand their respective knowledge in ways that benefit both disciplines. Artistic or aesthetic elements of the research can take a variety of forms but should be central to the questions being explored in the proposed project.  

Expenditures may include research assistants, graduate student stipend and tuition (where applicable), postdoctoral researchers’ salary and benefits, undergraduate student stipend, consultants, publishing charges, materials and equipment, event organization, and travel. Faculty summer salary or release time (semester leave), preparation of textbooks, and course development will not be supported through this innovation fund.

Brief descriptions of previously funded projects are available below.

Eligibility

Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty of Divisions I, III and IV, University Lecturers, Lecturers with the Rank of Professor, and Senior Lecturers in Division I are invited to submit proposals. Proposals should have at least two faculty co-PIs, one from division I and one from division III or IV. 

Submissions are limited to one proposal per faculty member. 

Award

Applicants may request up to $75,000 per year for up to two years (total of $150,000). 

Reporting

After completion of the project, a summary narrative and brief financial statement should be submitted to the Office of the Dean for Research, summarizing the outcomes and documenting expenses.  A copy of the suggested report template is available online. 

Application

Applications are to be submitted online using the InfoReady Review platform. 

Applicants are encouraged to use this template to compose a narrative of up to three pages and a separate budget with justification. The proposal should specifically describe how the funds will be utilized to accomplish the research objectives. In the proposal narrative, be sure to list other sources of funding received or pending and explain how they relate to the research described in this particular proposal. When developing the project budget, applicants are strongly encouraged to work with your regular grants manager, who will ensure that a prospective budget will have all of the information needed for reviewers to assess the budget as a key component of the proposal.

If relevant to the proposed project, letters of support from collaborators may be included as an appendix to the proposal, but such letters are not required.

Proposals will be judged on the basis of quality (the soundness and persuasiveness of the concept and the elegance of the research design), originality (how the proposal brings new ideas together to suggest surprising outcomes), intellectually compelling case for a close collaboration between artists and scientists or engineers, and plans for making the activity self-sustaining through competitive funding. The proposal template is provided to assist faculty in developing their submission; the committee will not use adherence to the template as a review criterion.

Due Date

Online application submission is due: not currently accepting applications.

Any questions may be brought to the attention of Karla Ewalt, Senior Associate Dean for Research, at [email protected].