Interdisciplinary Research Innovation Fund: Focus on the Arts & Humanities

Call for Proposals

Background

To maintain excellence in research and support innovation in emerging areas of scientific and societal interest, the Provost is allocating $300,000 in one-time funding for new internal interdisciplinary research grants. Proposals without a research component are not appropriate under this funding mechanism. This program may be continued and adjusted in future years, pending evaluation of this pilot.

Considering that areas such as the humanities and the arts currently have limited external funding opportunities, the goal is to foster collaborations between principal investigators (PIs) from these fields with researchers in fields that have more funding opportunities, such as the social sciences and/or STEM. These interdisciplinary collaborations will ideally establish new pathways for funded research that are currently beyond reach, ultimately leading to strong research proposals for external funding in the near future.

Considerations

All William & Mary full-time faculty are eligible to apply for these grants. This funding is expected to support new exploratory endeavors that lead to innovative, multiple-PI research proposals rather than typical ongoing scholarly activities. Preference will be given to proposals led by or prominently featuring PIs from the humanities and/or the arts that establish interdisciplinary collaborations across schools and/or disciplines.

Funding Details

The proposed funding may be used to support personnel, supplies, travel to field sites, and possibly other relevant necessary expenses. The maximum summer stipend for faculty members involved in the proposal is $3,000 each. If a course release is being requested, please include expenses for that release in the budget and obtain approval of the course release from your department chair and Dean or Vice-Dean. Undergraduate or graduate student funding is allowed. The funding for each award must be spent within two years of the grant date.

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Research initiation grants will be allocated up to $65,000 total per project for a period of two years and are allocated to support larger-scope projects. The expectation is that these grants result in grant submissions with budgets of over $1 million.
Pilot grants will be for up to $20,000 to support smaller-scope projects, but are also expected to lead to grant proposal submissions in the near future.

We expect to award a minimum of 4 research initiation grants and 2 pilot grants with this current round of funding.

Proposals should consist of no more than 5 pages in total. They must include an executive project summary (no more than 2 pages), a proposed budget, and a plan for external proposal submission. As the review committee will represent a broad range of research backgrounds, each proposal should be written in language that is understandable to reviewers outside the expertise of the PIs. In addition to describing the proposed scholarly work, the proposal should address how the project meets the previously mentioned considerations, provide a timeline for the project and address the feasibility of completing the project during the proposed timeline.

As mentioned above, proposals should also include a detailed description and timeline of actions to pursue external funding to continue this line of original work. The proposal budget (included in the 5-page limit) should summarize budget items and provide justification for each item. Proposals should also include an abbreviated CV (2-page maximum for each investigator, not included in the 5-page proposal limit). The proposal should indicate a single person who will be the PI and the contact person. There is no limit to the number of co-Principal Investigators (co-PIs).

Proposals Now Closed

The proposal period for the current funding cycle ended on February 26, 2024.

For questions, please contact Josh Burk, Professor of Psychological Sciences and Provost’s Faculty Fellow, at [[jabur2]].

Background

Considerations

Funding Details

Topics

Types of Grants

Proposals

Proposals Now Closed