2024 Awards for Creative Activity in the Fine, Performing, and Applied Arts; the Humanities; and the Social Sciences

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The Chancellor, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Research are pleased to announce applications are now open for the 2024 Awards for Creative Activity, the third round of a seed funding program to support scholarship in the arts, humanities and social sciences. We plan to allocate up to $500,000 to stimulate new projects and support broad dissemination of ongoing work.  The first two rounds of this program funded 86 projects with faculty from seven Colleges and have yielded over $2 million in new external funding.

Awards will fall under three categories: Fine, Performing and Applied Arts; Humanities; and Social Sciences. Awards will be made for two types of projects: Creative Activity and Creative Activity Dissemination. The final number of funded projects is contingent upon submission of a sufficient number of meritorious applications and availability of funds.

Award Information Heading link

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  • Letter of intent: March 11, 2024, 11:59 PM Central Time
  • Applications: April 1, 2024, 11:59 PM Central Time
  • Awards announced: May 2024
  • Anticipated start date: Summer 2024

The letter of intent will be used to flag potential eligibility problems and for review planning purposes, including identifying cases where special expertise might be required to review a proposal. It will not be used to prescreen proposals. The letter of intent requires the names and affiliations of all investigators, keywords, and a brief lay summary of your project (100-250 words). Submit your letter of intent here.

  • Principal investigators must be full-time (at least 0.8 FTE) UIC faculty.
  • Graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, lecturers, adjuncts, retired, emeritus, or visiting faculty are not eligible to be principal investigators, but they may be co-investigators on a proposal.
  • An individual may only be the principal investigator on one proposal, but may be a co-investigator on multiple proposals.
  • Previous awardees may apply for the 2024 cycle, but applications for new awards must be for a totally different project or a meaningfully distinct component of the one that was already supported.

Awards will support both new creative projects and dissemination of results of more advanced work.

Creative Activity awards are intended to stimulate new projects in the three program categories. Creative activity will vary by discipline and may include, but is not limited to, books, journal articles, digital and web-based formats, community engagement programs, design development, films, exhibitions, installations, and extramural grant applications. Budgets must reflect the actual costs of conducting the work and must be well justified.

Dissemination Awards are for ongoing projects with evidence of success that demonstrate need for support for dissemination. Dissemination Awards are ideal for increasing public exposure of ongoing work or completed projects, but do not depend on having a funded Creative Activity Award. These awards are designed to encourage development of more robust scholarship programs. Examples could include funds for subventions, development of digital platforms, materials reproduction costs, exhibits of research and creative work, or performance of an original play or musical work. These will also be evaluated according to the three categories of the award.

This is a two-stage application process, with a letter of intent (LOI) followed by a full application. LOIs will be accepted through March 11, 2024 at 11:59 pm Central time and will be used to screen potential eligibility issues and plan for review. Submitters will be notified that they may move forward with a full application within approximately three business days of the LOI deadline. The full application portal will open on March 14, 2024. Full applications will be accepted through April 1, 2024 at 11:59 pm Central time.

  • Other institutional approvals and certifications need not be in place at submission but they can be included if they are available.
  • Requests for course release or summer salary require approval from the PI’s unit executive officer and dean.
  • If you include cost sharing it must be firmly committed at the time of submission and reflected in your overall budget.
  • Do NOT include marital status, social security number, citizenship status or other personal information on your bio.
  • Faculty without experience applying for similar grants are encouraged to ask a colleague to review the proposal prior to submission. Proposals should have clearly defined goals and timelines that are tied to the amount of funding requested.

Application Information Heading link

The letter of intent will be used to flag potential eligibility problems and for review planning purposes, including identifying cases where special expertise might be required to review a proposal. It will not be used to prescreen proposals.

The letter of intent requires the project title, names and affiliations of all investigators, keywords, and a brief lay summary of your project (100-250 words). The project title, abstract, and co-investigators can be updated at the full proposal stage, but the PI cannot.

Submit your letter of intent here.

Proposals should describe the proposed project and how it will make an original, important and/or novel contribution to the field, the scholar’s career, and/or bring distinction to UIC. Project descriptions should explain the conceptual framework, design or methods, and how they will achieve the goals of the project. Project descriptions should be no more than three pages (single-spaced, 12-pt font, 1-in margins on all sides) and must use the section headings given below. If no response is required for a section, please write “NA”. Applicants whose LOIs were approved will receive access instructions for the full application portal on March 14, 2024.

Project Description

Cover page (not included in 3-page limit)

  • Project title
  • Category: Fine, Performing and Applied Arts; Humanities or Social Sciences
  • Award Type: Creative Activity or Creative Activity Dissemination
  • Keywords (up to 5)
  • Name, title, department of all investigators involved in the project, with PI’s and Co-PI’s clearly identified
  • Total funds requested

Summary Statement

State what you are going to do, how you are going to do it and why, in language appropriate for a multidisciplinary panel, defining any terms unique to your field. Highlight any new issues or questions you will study and anything about your approach that is novel or unique.

Significance

Note the significance of your project to the current knowledge in the field or related fields. If the project is multidisciplinary, describe its potential to contribute to a new (sub) field or novel approach. If applicable, explain if the proposal represents a move to a new area of scholarship for you or if there will be potential community or industry collaboration, or impact.

Timeline and milestones

Provide a summary timeline for activities by major goals or milestones. The work funded by the Award for Creative Activity should be completed within two years, although it can be part of a larger effort that extends longer. The proposal should describe deliverables that represent meaningful, significant progress toward the overall project goals.

PI Expertise

Highlight how PI (and any Co-PI) expertise and experience enhance the project’s feasibility.

Administrative Requirements

Highlight any critical administrative plans and agreements that will be prerequisites for the work to be completed, if any (e.g. access to sites, libraries, or equipment outside your control, agreements with community-based organizations, etc.).

Leveraging

If applicable, describe how the proposed results from this project will – or could potentially be – leveraged into any other important outcomes such as student support, pedagogical improvements, foundation or corporate underwriting, or extramural funding, i.e., grant applications. For external funding, identify specific sponsors, programs and deadlines.

Past Performance (not included in 3-page limit)

If the PI or Co-PI have received one of the following awards within the past five years, summarize the project purpose and outcomes, including the title and project period: Awards from OVCR, LAS, Institute for the Humanities, or The University of Illinois Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities award.

In addition, if you received an award from this program in 2020 or 2022, describe the accomplishments from that project. Applications for new awards must be for a totally different project or a meaningfully distinct component of the one that was already supported. This section will not be included in the 3-page limit and can be on a separate page.

Contingency plans (not included in 3-page limit)

Describe any vulnerabilities the project faces and how the project could be modified or an alternative path to success could be implemented if needed. Examples could include a resurgence in COVID, disruptions in key partnerships, access to critical resources such as archives, or a multi-stage project where later stages rely on the success of the earlier ones. This section will not be included in the 3-page limit and can be on a separate page.

References (not included in 3-page limit)

Include references to any literature cited in your proposal text or publications that substantially informed your project development. References are optional and will not be included in the 3-page limit. May be 10-point font.

Download the full application guidelines.

Each of the following attachments should be uploaded to the full application portal as a separate Adobe .pdf file.

 

Detailed Budget

Budget requests can be $2,500–$25,000. Please use this form as a template and print to pdf format for submission. See the “Use of Funds” > “Allowable costs” section for information on allowable costs.

Budget Justification (Up to 1 page)

Describe how and why you will use the funds. Use the following categories: (a) Personnel, (b) Materials & Supplies, (c) Itemized Services (d) Equipment, (e) Other. If a category is not applicable, indicate N/A.

Bios for the PI, Co-Is, or Other Collaborators

Please provide a brief biography (up to 200 words).

Other Attachments

Please include any other documentation that is necessary for reviewers to assess the feasibility and potential impact of your proposed work, e.g., letters of support from key collaborators outside UIC, approvals for cost share. Proposals that request course release or summer must include a statement of approval from the department head and dean. If multiple “Other Attachments” documents are needed, combine all into a single, flat pdf file for uploading.

Review Information Heading link

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Significance

Extent to which the project, if successfully carried out, has the potential to make an original, important and or novel contribution to the field and/or bring distinction to UIC.

Approach

Extent to which the conceptual framework, design or methods are appropriate to achieve the goals of the project.

Feasibility

Likelihood proposed work can be accomplished by the PI(s) in one year, given documented experience, expertise and independence, track record, preliminary data, requested and available resources, institutional support and/or, if appropriate, the adequacy of plans for addressing issues related to securing any institutional or community approvals. For larger projects (e.g., books), the entire project does not necessarily have to be completed within one year, but the proposal should articulate milestones for significant progress toward advancing the overall goal of the project.

Assessment of feasibility will include vulnerability to global disruptions and related contingency plans. In addition, reviewers will be asked to evaluate the stewardship of any funds awarded previously through this program.

Deliverables

Impact of the expected outcomes (e.g., scholarly books, articles, exhibits, performances, recordings) and any additional potential leveraging for follow on work or follow on funding.

Career Impact

Potential for the award to help facilitate a promising early career trajectory or to support the success of a more established faculty member.

To be competitive, you must craft the summary statement so any reviewers outside your area can understand why your work is important. Please define unfamiliar terms unique to your discipline and avoid jargon.

Proposals will be peer reviewed by category and by reviewers who will be assigned based upon the content of the proposal and their expertise. The panel of reviewers will forward recommendations to senior leadership who will make the final award selections.

Reviewers will be asked to score each proposal individually based on the criteria presented in the Reviewer Criteria section. The review questions and score weights are available here. Investigators are encouraged to consider the review questions as they develop their applications.

Post Award Information Heading link

Allowable costs

  • Materials and consumable supplies (photo paper, gatorboard, etc.). This does not include office supplies or other materials normally provided by your department
  • Library fees
  • Services (printing, publishing, prototype development, CNC, etc.)
  • Salary and fringe benefits for students, post docs, research assistants or technicians. Please use the fringe rates given in “Other Assessed Accounts” on page 4 of the OBFS FY24 Facilities & Administrative (F&A), Fringe Benefit and Tuition Remission Rates.
  • Course release time (release time will require approval by the PI’s department unit executive officer and dean)
  • Summer salary – no more than 1 month (summer salary requests will require approval by the PI’s department unit executive officer and dean)
  • Travel to visit archives, conduct field research or present project outcomes at meetings and symposia
  • Limited equipment requests considered on a case-by-case basis for items such as recording devices, cameras, digitalizing sources, etc.
  • Impact assessment, e.g., participant surveys, cost analyses
  • Costs related to publishing monographs, editions and subventions
  • Translations
  • Grad hourly workers. Research assistantships requiring tuition remission will not be supported. Tuition remission will not be supported.

Projects will be funded for up to two years; requests for no-cost extensions will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Progress reports will be required upon completion of the award period and may be requested up to five years after, depending on the project. Awardees may be asked to serve as reviewers in future intramural competitions. Complete details will be provided in the Notice of Award terms and conditions.

Proposal Submission Heading link

Application checklist

Upload each item as a separate pdf file.

  • Project description (* included in 3-page limit)
    • Cover page
    • *Summary statement
    • *Significance
    • *Timeline and milestones
    • *PI expertise
    • *Administrative requirements
    • *Leveraging
    • Past performance
    • Contingency plans
    • References (optional)
  • Budget form
  • Budget justification
  • Bios
  • Other attachments

No signatures are required, but you will be asked to certify on the submission page that your department head supports your application.

Previous Award Recipients

For questions, please contact the Office of Research Development at rds@uic.edu.