LAS Interdisciplinary Research Award Information
Due to the current economic crisis for the University and subsequently the College, the Interdisciplinary Research Award program has been cancelled for this coming year. Please accept our apologies to those of you who have already begun, and in some cases completed, applications. If you have questions, please feel free to contact Associate Dean Jennifer Brier at jbrier@uic.edu.
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences announces a new Interdisciplinary Research Award Program intended to support work in the college that explores scholarly and research questions that transcend the methodological and conceptual boundaries of traditional disciplines. We seek proposals that explicitly combine the lexicons, research agendas, and presentation techniques of more than one discipline. As many as ten awards of $10,000 each will be made each year to teams of two or more faculty members who propose to bring their differing expertise together to address a question or problem.
Competitive proposals will include:
- A clearly articulated scholarly question or project
- A rationale for the interdisciplinary approach, stipulating the disciplinary techniques and/or assumptions to be combined and explaining why the project requires that conjunction.
- A clearly described research strategy, implementation plan and anticipated deliverables/outcomes
- Evidence of a group of core faculty who have an established working relationships or documentation of the potential for a new collaboration
- A budget consistent with the goals of the project. Travel, conference related expenses, undergraduate research assistants and books may be included in the budget. The program will not fund course buy outs or summer salary for faculty.
Sample activities might include:
- A workshop series focusing on an interdisciplinary topic that would include UIC faculty as well as colleagues from other institutions to culminate in a special issue of a journal.
- A participatory research project that engages members of a community around a timely issue relevant to local or national social policy.
- A city-wide conference on conceptions of disciplinarity itself.
- A co-or multiple-authored monograph that focuses on ways in which new technology crosses disciplinary boundaries.
- An intensive mentoring program in which one or more faculty members learn a new discipline by shadowing a colleague or colleagues for one semester. Such a proposal should lead to publication in an interdisciplinary venue (a sociologist working on a public health issue, for example)
Funding decisions will be made by a committee elected by the faculty with two members appointed by the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Proposals should not exceed 10 pages and are due on January 11, 2010. Faculty at all ranks are encouraged to apply. For more information, please contact Jennifer Brier, Associate Dean of The College.