Departmental Research Funds for the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences

These funds help support faculty research in the arts, humanities, and social sciences, where external funding opportunities are limited. The Office of the Vice President for Research provides funds to departments in these fields, and department chairs are responsible for soliciting brief written proposals from interested faculty, managing a merit-based review process, and awarding funds to applicants. Expenses that may be supported by this fund include, but are not limited to, travel to research conferences or archives, preparation of manuscripts and articles, and securing permissions. The Vice President for Research will distribute departmental allocations of $1000 per full-time faculty member. Because this is to be a merit-based process, we anticipate awards of $1,500-$2,000 to approximately half the faculty within a department rather than awarding $1,000 to all faculty. All expenditures under this program must be in accordance with University policies and procedures.

Eligibility

A professor at any rank or any senior lecturer active in research is eligible. Faculty members who hold named chairs are eligible to receive these funds, but adjunct, emeritus, and visiting faculty are not.

Amount and Duration of Awards

Awards will be up to $2,000 per faculty member. Awards are for one year.

Timeline and Procedure for Submitting Proposals

The Office of the Vice President for Research will inform department chairs of their total available funds in September.
Preliminary reports should be submitted electronically by each department chair to Anne Windham (Anne_Windham@brown.edu) in the Office of the Vice President for Research by November 1, 2007. The reports should summarize, in a few sentences, the allocation process and the faculty to whom awards will be distributed, along with the projects they proposed.

Funds will become available to faculty on or after January 14, 2008.  The funds would be available for use until the end of June, 2009.*

Final reports from the chairs containing one-paragraph synopses of each funded project are due in the Office of the Vice President for Research by August 31, 2009.