COVID-19 UPDATE March 13, 2020 1:20 p.m. : In response to the announcement from President Fitts, Taylor will follow recommendations outlined by the university.
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For the current funding process, Taylor will continue to review applications as normal but will not disburse funds until the university lifts its policy on non-essential travel and in-person classes.
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Therefore, experiences that will occur between March 15 to May 17 will not be funded unless it is a virtual/online experience.
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Furthermore, funding disbursements for summer opportunities will only occur once Tulane has amended its policies related to travel and classes.
Please visit the Tulane COVID19 FAQ page for more information.
The Social Innovation Research Fund (SIRF) for faculty aims to support research and scholarly activities of Tulane faculty related to changemaking theories and practice.
Our aim is to help catalyze and promote academic scholarship and knowledge production from any academic discipline on a range of themes in social innovation, including social entrepreneurship, design thinking for social impact, social innovation processes, changemaking, education, evaluation, social impacts.
Deadline to Apply: January 31, 2020
How can the funding be used?
The SIRF can award up to $1500 per year per individual faculty member.
- The SIRF generally can support: research assistants, field research costs, travel, research-related materials, conference attendance for presenting your research, costs of action research in a community setting, and/or other relevant activities to develop your scholarly research project with a clear social innovation theme.
- The SIRF generally cannot support: salaries for faculty, major equipment, a graduate student’s own research projects (see the Taylor Center CCA fund for graduate students), and other non-eligible costs according to Tulane policy.
Who is eligible for the SIRF?
- All regular full-time Tulane faculty, of any rank and any appointment, of any discipline of study and with a faculty appointment any school/college at Tulane are eligible for the SIRF.
- Who is Not Eligible: Part-time faculty, Adjunct faculty, the current Social Entrepreneurship Professors, other Taylor Center-affiliated staff and faculty, and faculty of other universities are currently not eligible for the SIRF.
Budget and Reimbursement
- Funds requested should be appropriately detailed and documented and must comply with all Tulane requirements.
- Faculty are expected to account for funds in Concur and via their own (or departmental) T&E card, wherever possible.
How to Apply
Application
- Submit a (6-page maximum) single PDF document by email to SIRF_Bo.gs2h8dtikukfwcmj@u.box.com.
- Email your application as a single PDF labeled “Your LastName_Initial_SIRF.pdf”. Combine all elements below into one single PDF packet.
Your proposal should describe your proposed research/scholarship activities, show how they relate to social innovation themes, provide information about yourself, and tell us clearly how you plan to use the funds. Organize this as (1) a coherent narrative description in ordinary English accessible to a wide audience, with a 2-3 sentence summary; (2) a proposed budget in tabular form, and a (3) narrative budget justification explaining your budget. Your application should address questions below. Also (4) Attach a short resume/CV of 3 pages max.
Questions to address in your application:
- What aspect of social innovation are you exploring or addressing in some way?
- What academic discipline(s), approaches, and methods do you use (or plan to use)?
- What will you do with the funds?
- Where will your proposed research/scholarship activities take place? (field-sites, if any)
- What might be the value of this proposed project/activity to your professional academic trajectory?
- What might be the larger scholarly/academic significance of this proposed activity/ies?
- What might be the larger societal significance of this proposed project/activity?
Hints:
- Write for an informed, multi-disciplinary audience.
- Avoid (or define) specific academic jargon.
- Give your project a meaningful title.
- Include a 2-3 sentence summary at the beginning.
- Use only a few key, useful bibliographic references to position your project.
- Do also consider other sources of support at Tulane for small-scale faculty research projects, such as Stone Center, NCI, Murphy Institute, CELT and CPS.
Our review process:
An internal, multi-disciplinary review committee of scholars and faculty will review applications and make decisions within 3 weeks.
- Winning applications will be responsive to the purpose, vision & mission of the Taylor Center and of the SIRF, as described above.
- Proposals will demonstrate clearly how the requested funds will be used to promote a scholarly research project in relation to social innovation.
- Any disciplinary approaches and methodologies are appropriate in theory; your proposed work must be coherently linked to questions of or about social innovation as a field of study, theoretical issues, processes of social action or social change, empirical evidence, etc.
- We aim to support collaborative work and research involving graduate students and with communitybased partners. Note that graduate students can apply to other funding opportunities at Taylor.
Questions?
Do you still have questions about the SIRF?
Email Dr. Laura Murphy at lmurphy2@tulane.edu.
