As a community of artists, scholars, designers, performers, and educators the College of Fine Arts is committed to engaging the local and global communities in which we live and serve through innovative creative practices and outstanding scholarship. To support faculty whose research thoughtfully engages with communities, and/or the public sector, COFA has collaborated with Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors to jointly fund $40,000 each to The Fine Arts Community Engagement and Public Practice Seed Grant program each year.
The Fine Arts Community Engagement and Public Practice Seed Grant is a competitive application for research funding to support direct costs of a College of Fine Arts faculty member’s community-engaged or public practice-based research or creative project during one academic year. The amount awarded will be in response to a submitted budget but will not exceed $10,000 per faculty collaborator.
Collaboration
This program was created to support collaborative research between COFA faculty across disciplines, and COFA faculty in partnership with local community members or community organizations. The Fine Arts Community Engagement and Public Practice Seed Grant endeavors to support the initial investment in a community-engaged, public practice-based research or creative project. The funding is intended to meet the project’s research goals, develop an additional external grant proposal, or to provide matching funding toward a relevant external grant. Proposals from more than one faculty member in the College of Fine Arts should be submitted as one joint proposal and may be awarded up to $10,000 per College of Fine Arts faculty collaborator on the project.
Eligibility
All tenure-track, tenured, practice-series, and instruction-series faculty members of any rank who have a faculty appointment within the College of Fine Arts or one of its constituent departments or schools are eligible to apply.
Criteria and Selection Process
Applications will be evaluated by your department chair or school director and a college-wide faculty review committee. The evaluation criteria are the quality of the project proposal, the expected impact on the community or intended publics of the research or creative project, and the extent of new collaborations fostered by the project. Collaborative proposals between COFA faculty, and proposals for which the faculty member has also applied for external funding will be prioritized. The dean will make the final decision regarding which proposals to fund.
Application Procedure
To apply, please send the following applications materials to Tim Creswick via e-mail at timcreswick@austin.utexas.edu by December 1, 2023:
- Curriculum Vita
- Project Proposal, including
- Brief description or abstract of the research or creative project
- Description of the specific activities this funding will support
- Identification of the community or publics with which the project will engage
- Benefits, anticipated impact, and expected outcome of the project
- Listing of all faculty collaborators on this project, including their department affiliation, faculty rank, and role on the project.
- Budget, identifying the specific amount requested from this program and what it will be used for
- Proof of application for external funding for this research project, if applicable
Funding this year will be made available for use as soon as January 1, 2024 and will be accessible until August 31, 2024.
Post Award Report
Recipients will be required to complete a brief report about the outcomes of their project, after the fiscal year during which they received funding. The dean’s office will e-mail the prompt for the post-award report directly to recipients at the conclusion of their funding period to provide instructions and a deadline.
Page last updated: 10/3/2023
