HMC-Sponsored Faculty Research Grants

Call for Proposals: Internal Funding for 2022

You are invited to apply for internal funding to support research, scholarship, and creative work to be conducted in 2022. The Research, Presentation Days, and IRB Committee values and seeks to support all scholarly and creative work, including work without students, work with students, fundamental scholarship, creative projects, and applied work. Similarly, faculty of all contract types are eligible for this funding.

Awards will be made in these two categories:

  1. Student-Faculty Research Awards: In support of faculty-led summer research projects in any discipline. The base amount of each award is $6,000: $5,000 for a student research stipend plus fringe benefits; $1,000 stipend for supplies or travel related to the research project. Note that the student stipend amount is subject to change, and awards will be adjusted accordingly.
  2. Faculty Research, Scholarship, or Creative Work Awards (without a student). In support of faculty projects that advance professional and scholarly development. Base amount: $3,500 for supplies, travel, supplemental salary or other expenses.

In both Categories 1 and 2, there is additional funding this year from the Hixon-Riggs Forum for Responsive Science and Engineering, supporting faculty and student research that examines the social dimensions of science and/or technology. In particular, this funding is intended to support projects in which questions about the relationships between science, technology, and society are central to the investigation. Interdisciplinary projects drawing on research methods from STEM and HSA fields are especially encouraged.

All internal awards should be spent between Jan. 1, 2022 and Dec. 31, 2022. Student faculty research award stipends should be used during the summer months.

Additional Funding: Proposers may request up to $1,000 in additional funding with justification. No budget is required for the base-amount Award in category 1; budgets are required in category 2. The Research Committee may adjust Award amounts – up or down – based on the strength of the proposal and the availability of funding.

Eligibility

The competition is open to all members of the Harvey Mudd College faculty, including tenured, tenure-track, and visiting faculty. While we expect to support faculty at all ranks, some preference may be given to proposals from early career faculty of all contract types.

Proposal Submission

As in past years, we have two time tracks to apply for both types of internal funding:

  1. Submit a full proposal via the link below by 5:00 pm Wednesday, December 1st, 2021. We expect faculty will receive a decision no later than early January 2022.
  2. Submit an intent to apply by 5:00 pm Sunday, December 5, 2021, by filling out this form (https://forms.gle/KpkyqGU3oQDwerWH8) and then submitting a full proposal via the link below by 5:00 pm Friday, January 21, 2022.

The RPI Committee will accept rolling applications throughout the spring as long as funding is available.

Full proposals for either time track should be submitted electronically to the following Google Form links:

Summer 2022 Student-Faculty Research Mentorship Awards

Summer 2022 Faculty Research, Scholarship, and Creative Works Awards

Proposals should be understandable by any member of the Harvey Mudd College faculty. Please avoid highly technical language, extensive use of chemical or mathematical formulas, unnecessary illustrations, and bibliographical references unless they are germane. You may include an appendix but be sure to make your case in the main part of the proposal. You may add an additional page if you are requesting additional funding and are including a budget. Please include text explaining and justifying the additional funding.

Please include the following information:

  • A descriptive project title.
  • Intellectual Merit: A description of the project including,
    • the goals, methods, and feasibility of the work – herein, feasibility means that you have sufficient space, resources, expertise, etc to carry out the work if you receive this award,
    • the way(s) in which the work is novel and/or creative, and
    • the potential of the work to advance knowledge and/or contribute to your field
    • Suggested length: 200-400 words.
  • Potential Impact on the Faculty Member’s Career: A description of how this project fits into your overall career trajectory and the impact that this award would have on your professional development as a faculty member. For example, might this award allow you to collect preliminary data for a grant, or finalize a manuscript or conference paper, etc? Is this project new or continuing? Optional: The pandemic has impacted all of our careers. This section might include a brief statement of how your scholarly work was impacted by the pandemic and/or how this award would help you resume your work. Suggested length: 200-300 words.
  • Broader Impact: The way(s) in which this work has meaning beyond the individual faculty member. Suggested length: 200-300 words.
    • Category 1: A description of what the research student will do and what the benefits for the student are expected to be. Please include a short statement about your mentoring philosophy and/or your plans to mentor your student(s).
    • Category 2: A description of how the work intersects with an issue beyond the faculty member, for example by speaking to a question relevant to some aspect of society or the underlying question that motivates your work. Note that fundamental scholarship is considered as beneficial to society as applied work.
  • Previous Success: Those who have received internal HMC funding in the past are asked to share how those funds led to successful outcomes (positive student experience, publications, presentations, screenings, scripts, musical performance, generation of preliminary results for grant applications, conference presentations, etc.). This preference will not be considered for applications from faculty members who have not received internal funding in the past. We also recognize that “previous success” will look different in this pandemic world, and herein “success” is broadly defined. For example, experimentalists may have spent summer 2021 repairing equipment or retraining students, or a humanist may have submitted an application to visit an archive or outlined a conference paper. Any step toward restarting scholarly work falls under “previous success.” Suggested length: 100-250 words.

Please contact Kathy Van Heuvelen (vanheuvelen@g.hmc.edu) if you have any questions or run into any issues. The Research, Presentation Days, and IRB Committee looks forward to reading your proposals!