The Office of Graduate Studies in the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences offers seed funding via GRAD-PI, the Graduate Programming Incubator. GRAD-PI’s mission is to foster interdisciplinarity in graduate education and training by incubating, developing, and implementing programming and programs that bridge disciplines, departments, schools, and institutions. It is designed to encourage collaboration among students and faculty with shared intellectual interests but different academic affiliations. GRAD-PI also seeks to assist advanced doctoral students in forming working groups that support the development of research projects and dissertation-writing in interdisciplinary settings.
For further details, please follow this link.
Seed funding is available to support innovative initiatives involving both graduate students and faculty. Funds can be used to convene year-long workshops for (a) sustained faculty-student consideration of curricular innovation across departments or schools; (b) the purpose of increasing knowledge in a specific area with the goal of developing a concrete outcome (e.g., publishable paper, grant proposal, symposium or conference, performance or exhibition); (c) interdisciplinary prospectus or dissertation development. Funding can also be requested to cosponsor summer schools or year-long training or experiences that might involve, e.g., undergraduate researchers and/or community engagement.
Eligibility, Application Process, Funding
Groups of graduate faculty and students must consist of no fewer than eight members from two or more units at the point of application, with others joining after activities commence, but they typically will consist of 10-15 members. Groups must be self-organized and not be part of a credit-bearing course. Interdisciplinary graduate groups must meet regularly throughout the academic year. Each group must designate at least two student coordinators from two disciplines and two faculty coordinators from two disciplines. Student coordinators will typically have reached candidacy. The coordinators will collaborate to prepare the proposal and year-end report and to manage the budget via one designated home unit (department/program); arrange and publicize meetings; arrange for readings to be circulated; keep records of membership, attendance, and activities. All coordinators will participate in meetings. Typically, additional faculty will participate consistently in meetings.
Proposals: proposals are currently invited on a rolling basis for projects in AY2020/2021. Groups considering an application should reach out to Associate Dean Holger Hoock to discuss scope and budget.
Proposals must include:
Cover sheet: project title; name, department, and years in program of designated student coordinators; name and department of graduate faculty coordinators; designated home unit to manage budgetary processes; names and departments of any other participants, with years in program for student members.
Topic statement (500 words maximum): describe and explain the relevance, the topic(s) to be addressed, and the value of interdisciplinary collaboration; make reference to relevant literature and any established groups or activities on campus.
Program of planned activities: must include a culminating event or product
Proposed budget and justification: groups should only apply for funding strictly necessary to conduct their activities; proposals should include a justification; include any other funding that has been secured for the project. Matching funding strongly preferred.
CVs (2 pages maximum each) for coordinators.
Letters of support: brief letters of support from the Director of Graduate Studies of each student coordinator and the Chair of each faculty coordinator.
Please submit applications in a single pdf attached to an email to graddean@pitt.edu. Applications will be reviewed by the Associate and Assistant Deans for Graduate Studies, in consultation with other administrators and faculty members as appropriate. If there are more applications that fulfil program goals than can be funded, preference will be given to proposals that appear most likely to generate innovative interdisciplinary collaboration and that are best positioned to support the progress of the participating graduate students.
Faculty and Ph.D. students in the Humanities: please also explore funding opportunities through Humanities Engage.
Inquiries should be directed to Dean Hoock at graddean@pitt.edu