Seed Grants CFP

Digital Humanities Seed Grants: Call for Proposals

Deadline: March 1, 2017

Award: up to $2,000

Funding/Project Period: 2017-2018

The Rutgers Digital Humanities Initiative (DHI) invites proposals for seed grants to support digital humanities projects in research, teaching, and public outreach, in any discipline or area of the university. This funding cycle will be for projects conducted during the subsequent 12 months (i.e. April 1, 2017 – March 30, 2018).

Rutgers DHI seed grants are designed to foster collaborative projects of all kinds, including:

• Textual analysis: digital editions; websites that invite linguistic, social, and historical analysis of texts; text aggregation sites; the development of tools for digital analysis.
• Geospatial approaches to literary texts and historical problems.
• Network Analysis of literary texts and historical problems.
• Data-mining of large corpora for insights into genres, discourses, and the sociology of knowledge.
• Digital projects whose aim is primarily pedagogical, often undertaken with civic or public humanities goals in mind.
• Humanistic studies of new media, science or technology.

Applicants may be tenured or tenure-track faculty, non-tenure track faculty, staff, and/or graduate students. As the seed grant initiative is funded by the School of Arts and Sciences in New Brunswick, at least one member of the project team must be affiliated with the New Brunswick campus. The committee will prioritize applications for new projects, for projects that demonstrate collaboration across units, and for projects that make use of the existing infrastructure and resources that are available through the Digital Humanities Lab.

A detailed budget is required for all applications. Awards will be for costs associated with conducting or disseminating research, purchasing technology (limited to a maximum of 30% of total budget) or hiring specialized technical development (programming, etc.). Funds may not be used to pay faculty salary or for a course buyout.

Application Package and Process

• All applications must include a Project Narrative of up to 1,500 words. The narrative should describe the guiding premises of the project clearly, provide a clear overview of the project’s structure (components, personnel, tasks), and describe in concrete terms what the project hopes to accomplish by the end of the 12-month period.
• Applications must include a separate, detailed budget, with clear explanations for each item and a justification of their importance to the project.
• Applications must include a separate timetable that outlines the expected stages of the work and a date of completion.
• Applications must include a CV from the primary investigator on the project and from any other individuals who will play a leading or critical supporting role (i.e. outside programmers, other specialized contributors).
• Applications should take the form of a Word file or a PDF containing the primary applicant’s last name in the filename. Applications should be submitted to Paul Israel, Convener, Digital Humanities Initiative, at pisrael [AT] rutgers.edu by 5:00 PM on March 1, 2017.
• Applications will be reviewed by a subcommittee made up of faculty and staff associated with the DHI.
• All applicants will be notified by March 31, 2017.

Report on Outcomes

• All funded applicants must submit a report of 1,500 words by May 1, 2018 that describe the outcomes of their project. The report should be written by the lead investigator on the project, with assistance from other collaborators where necessary.
• The lead investigator or team on all funded projects must make a presentation of their work at the DHI’s annual showcase, to be held in Spring 2018.

Contact: Paul Israel, Convener, Digital Humanities Initiative at pisrael [AT] rutgers.edu.

Image courtesy of British Library.