Internal Competitive Funding Opportunity to Advance Scholarship in the Creative Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences

Call for Proposals

The President, the Vice President for Research and the Provost are issuing a call for proposals from the faculty in the creative arts, humanities and social sciences for the FY2014 Internal Competitive Funding Opportunity to Advance Scholarship in the Creative Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS).

This will be the third such internal initiative at Texas Tech University. More than $1,000,000 has been awarded to more than 90 recipients in previous competitions.

This year, the university will make available $150,000 for the competition. Two levels of awards will be made:

• Level 1 – $3,000 or less
• Level 2 – $10,000 or less

In contrast to the previous years, it is expected that more awards, but at lesser amounts will be distributed. The relevant deadlines for the competition are provided in the Guidelines for Submitting Proposals.

These funds are intended to advance the scholarship of the applicant and promote excellence. Specifically, these funds are intended to be transformational—to foster collaborations within and outside the humanities and social sciences, to provide a mechanism to promote creativity and enhance scholarly productivity. Expected outcomes would be books published or book contracts with prestigious publishers, support opportunities with foundations, applications to distinguished faculty award opportunities, early scholarship advancement, new areas of work, new collaborators and collaborations, presentations at the best conferences and workshops, etc.

The types of activities that funds can be used for include:

• Purchase of supplies and equipment (including computers)
• Travel to conferences (national and international)
• Travel for collaboration
• Travel to potential funding organizations (foundations, associations)
• Support for graduate students
• Funding of workshops and symposia that help promote the development of transformational programs and support for undergraduate research projects.

Rationales can be provided for other appropriate uses. (Please note that according to university policy, all equipment purchased with these funds remains the property of Texas Tech University.)

This competition is designed for faculty in the creative arts, humanities and social sciences who do not have significant and easy access to funding at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal, state and private sector sources. By way of clarification, a number of sub-disciplines in the social sciences do have access to funding at NSF through the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (applicants should carefully review these programs, please see http://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=SBE). Therefore, applications from faculty who specialize in these areas will not be a high priority for this competition. In addition, those who are currently funded through the previous CAHSS internal competitions will be eligible to participate in the FY2014 competition. These applicants however, must have completed reports on the progress made with their previous support. This will be part of the evaluation process.

Collaboration is allowed on all awards, though the award amount will remain the same. Please note that faculty members are allowed to submit only one application (even as co-applicant); multiple applications are not allowed.

Intentionally, dossiers will undergo rigorous peer review. The application and review process will be confidential. We will use a transparent peer review process; the composition of the peer review committee will be shared after its constitution and before proposals are due. There will be strict conflict of interest management protocols. Constructive and thoughtful feedback will be provided.

We hope that this competition will foster intense interest in this opportunity and great benefit to the faculty members who are selected for awards.

The guidelines are to be used for proposal submittals. The process this fiscal year is being managed by a steering committee comprised of Dr. Michael San Francisco (chair), with other faculty members to be named.

For further information, please contact Dr. Michael San Francisco in the OVPR at michael.sanfrancisco@ttu.edu or at 742-3905.