OR&I Explore RFP

Request for Proposals

Purpose

Duke’s Office for Research & Innovation (OR&I) Explore grants are designed to foster scholarship that may not be well served by established funding mechanisms. In contrast to grants that target mostly larger-scale projects, OR&I Explore grants are designed to provide up to $15,000 of project funding for one-year projects in four categories:

• New Collaborations grants will support faculty seeking to build communities across units and disciplines for projects in the early-stage of development. These funds are designed to lower the barrier to entry for interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Planning grants will support the launch of new research projects, with the goal of providing a stronger platform for external funding applications.
• Sustaining grants will enable faculty to deepen or extend already-existing partnerships, while serving as an example to other faculty of productive collaborations. Ideally, these partnerships will have previously received internal or external support for their collaborations.
• Completion grants will bring ongoing scholarly or artistic projects to fruition by meeting needs that are not well-matched to common funding opportunities. Grants in this second category will identify barriers to completion and show the Explore resources would enable projects to overcome those barriers. 

Eligibility

Grant applications should be led by Duke Regular Rank faculty members (including Tenure Track, Research Professor, Professor of Practice, Lecturer and Senior Lecturer appointments) in the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences. Projects may include connections between those areas and other disciplines, but are not required to do so.

Budget & Allowable Costs

Allowable items: Budgets may cover all necessary scholarly expenses including but not limited to: research-related travel; stipends for research assistants; materials, supplies, equipment and services including internal and external support services (e.g., art materials, production staff); workshops, meetings, and symposia (e.g., space costs, simultaneous translation); software and media including web design, web development and server space.

Exclusions: Please note that salary/stipend for faculty applicants (e.g., course release, summer salary) is not an allowable budget item. Materials and fees supporting publication (e.g., translation, transcription, book subvention) are also not currently allowable budget items for the EXPLORE program.

Justification and Total: A brief but compelling justification of each budget item is an important component of the proposal. Total budget requests can be up to $15,000; partial awards may be offered depending on both project scope and overall funding.

Application Requirements

The application includes:

• Title of project
• Name of responsible faculty member and any collaborators
• Name of your grant manager or individual who will assist with administering the award funding
• 5 keywords (will be used to identify appropriate reviewers)

Additionally, applicants will be asked to submit the following:

1.Project Narrative: A project narrative, up to 2 pages in length, including the following:

• Brief description of the project.
• Explanation of the scholarly and/or artistic potential of the work.
• Explanation of how the work fits within applying faculty members’ ongoing scholarly trajectory.
• A plan to make substantial progress toward project aims within the one-year term.

In addition to the project narrative requirements listed above,

• For New Collaborations grants, please include:
  • Further explanation regarding interdisciplinary components and the nature of team-based interactions
  • A brief description of possible future funding or outputs.
• For Planning grants, please include a brief description of possible future funding.
• For Completion grants, include a brief explanation of the current status of the project and why this project would be difficult to fund from other sources or finalize without funding.
• For Sustaining grants, include information about both (a) previous sources of funding and outputs and (b) possible future funding opportunities and output.

2. Budget and Budget Justification: one-page document including the budget and budget justification

3. Application CV/ Resumes: For all listed faculty members, please include:

• Current department, school,
• Faculty title
• Type and date of terminal degree
• Date and title of first Duke faculty appointment
• Link to the Scholars@Duke page for any faculty named in the project

Formatting Requirements

• Paper size no larger than 8 ½ x 11
• At least one-half inch margins (1/2”) – top, bottom, left, and right for all pages
• Font size is at least 11 pt in size and generally recommend Times New Roman, Arial, Georgia, Helvetica, Calibri, or Palatino Linotype
• Please submit through the Kuali form available here.

Review Criteria

The Explore proposal review process will be coordinated by the Office for Research & Innovation, in collaboration with faculty and leadership in the arts, humanities, and interpretative social sciences. Applications will be judged on:

• Responsiveness to the request for applications (ineligible applications will be returned unreviewed).
• Scholarly or artistic potential for completed work.
• Potential impact of the project on the faculty member’s (or faculty members’) discipline and/or the relevant interdisciplinary domain.
• Potential impact of the project on the faculty member’s career trajectory.

Reporting Requirements

• One-page summary at the end of the award period.
• Annual queries to award recipient will be made to ascertain whether any external funding, papers, books, performances, etc. have resulted from this award.

Timeline

Submissions

Submissions will close on February 16, 2026 at 11:59 PM.