STEAM Innovation Grant

The School of Fine Arts is pleased to  be able once again to offer this program in support of collaborative STEAM research, made possible with funds provided by the OVPR. A total of $60,000 in funding is available for this year’s competition.

The purpose of the program is to encourage innovative collaborations between the arts and STEM disciplines (e.g. all disciplines housed in the Schools of Engineering or Medicine, or the College of Agriculture, Health, and Natural Resources, or those sciences, including social sciences, in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the School of Business). Projects funded by this grant may result in publications, exhibitions, performances, academic symposia, or other research outcomes. Our priority is to encourage work that genuinely integrates art and science; this should go beyond the simple application of well-established concepts or techniques from one domain to inform the other,  and generate new approaches on both sides of the collaboration. Preference will be given to proposals which identify specific external grant opportunities that have the potential to support sustainable (e.g., multi-year) collaborations.

Proposals may be submitted for awards of between $20,000 and $60,000. Awards will be made for approximately one year, unless a compelling justification is made by the PIs for an alternative funding period. The standard award period will be May 1, 2024 to June 30, 2025.

 

REQUIREMENTS:

Projects must include at least one Co-PI from the School of Fine Arts and at least one Co-PI from another school or college at UConn/UConn Health. If the sole Co-PI external to the School of Fine Arts is housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, this individual must be in a discipline outside the humanities. For example, a collaboration between faculty in Music and English would not qualify, but a project involving Music and Physics would be eligible (as would a collaboration involving Music, Physics, and English).

Co-PIs must each make significant and distinct intellectual contributions to the design and direction of the project. PIs should be full-time UConn tenure-track, in-residence, or clinical faculty. Research Professors / those whose positions are contingent on grant-funding (soft-money positions) are not eligible to apply as PI. Faculty with projects that could involve grant-dependent faculty should contact the selection committee Chair before applying. Consistent with analagous initiatives (such as the REP), eligible faculty may only participate as Co-PI in one proposal per year submitted to this competition.  Investigators may serve as collaborator on multiple projects.

Course buyouts will not be permitted due to the fact there are different (and at times divergent) college-level and school-level policies concerning course releases and course buyouts.

Budget preparation, including determination of allowable items, should follow the OVPR REP guidelines:

https://ovpr.uconn.edu/services/research-development/rep-storrs/

Click on ‘Budget Preparation’ (use of the Excel budget spreadsheet is optional for this grant).

 

EVALUATION CRITERIA:

The following criteria will be used to evaluate projects:

Eligibility Criteria	At least one qualifying SFA faculty.	Yes/no
	At least one qualifying STEM faculty.	Yes/no
Quality Criteria	Merit of rationale, approach, and impact.	Low  Med  High
	Originality of approaches/insights from SFA.	Low  Med  High
	Originality of approaches/insights from STEM.	Low  Med  High
	Likelihood that integration of SFA & STEM elements will lead to unique and compelling outcomes.	Low  Med  High
	Potential to generate follow-on external funding.	Low  Med  High

 

SUBMISSION PROCESS:

Application deadline: 5.00 p.m., Wednesday, February 21, 2024.

For details of proposal format, see next page (this document can also be downloaded from steam.uconn.edu). Completed application package should be submitted as a PDF attachment via e-mail to Alain Frogley, School of Fine Arts: alain.frogley@uconn.edu

Awards will be announced in late March.

Selection committee:

Alain Frogley, Chair (Interim Dean, School of Fine Arts)
Andrew Moiseff  (Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Affairs, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences)
Leslie Shor (Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, School of Engineering).
Kumar Venkitanarayanan (Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources)