IAIG Pilot Competition

Announcement

The centerpiece of the university’s strategic plan, “Forward THINKING”, is its emphasis on building interdisciplinary initiatives. “We will establish powerful alliances and enrich our core strengths.”  The plan identified several cross-cutting areas of existing or potential strength in research and scholarship that address topics of broad importance to society and present opportunities for distinction. 

In 2010 the Provost held the first Interdisciplinary Alliance Investment Grant (IAIG) competition which resulted in 12 awards ranging from $35K to $700K, as well three seed grants.  A second funding competition was held in 2011 with two funding tracks.  One was focused on smaller ($50K), less constrained, innovative, ground-breaking pilot projects, while the other involved five larger ($250K), invited/targeted projects.

The Alliances received 56 concept papers and selected 24 to move to the full proposal stage in the pilot competition.  The proposals were reviewed by a team of 12 faculty members from across the campus that submitted written reviews and then met to discuss their assessments.  The proposals were scored on overall quality and innovation, extent of interdisciplinary research and/or education, significance relative to the university’s mission, vision and core values, feasibility and sustainability. The review team recommended the 11 proposals listed below for funding.