DST Spark Seed Grants 2022-2023 RFP

Purpose

These funds are directed towards enhancing the creativity and novel research and scholarship of Duke’s early/mid-career faculty and will help our faculty pursue new directions and ideas that would otherwise be difficult to fund from other sources.

Eligibility

Full-time Duke Tenure Track Assistant Professors who have been at Duke for a minimum of 3 years and Associate Professors who have been promoted within the last five years.

Budget

Budget submissions should be in line with the project's scope. Budgets for scientific projects - May request up to $150,000 with an award term of one year. No-cost extension requests of a second year are possible, but a third year will not be approved. Projects in the arts, humanities, and social sciences will be granted up to $15,000 (exceptions will be considered based on the project's scope).

Allowable Cost

Funds may be used for salary/stipend and fringe of personnel (including PI, students, post-docs, technicians, etc.), equipment, travel, and/or consumables. Funding of collaborators outside of Duke will not be allowed.

Proposal Requirements

• Title of project, name of PI, appointment information (current department, school, faculty title), date and title of first Duke faculty appointment, 5 keywords (will be used to identify proper reviewers)
• Up to 2 pages describing the project and should include:
  • Justification of why this project is a departure from the faculty member’s current research
  • Justification of why this project would be difficult to fund from other sources
  • A plan to make substantial progress toward their aims within the one-year term
• A short CV or biosketch of up to 5-pages — should clearly include the date of the first tenure track faculty appointment and include all current sources of research/scholarship support
• A one-page budget and budget justification
• All submitted documents must use a font size of 11 points

Review Criteria

Applications will be reviewed by an internal committee, and will be judged on:

• Responsiveness to the RFA (ineligible applications will be returned unreviewed). The proposal should represent a new direction or new project for the faculty member
• Creativity of the proposal
• Potential impact of the proposal on the faculty member’s discipline

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 derived from this award

Timeline

Submissions

Submissions closed on April 20, 2022, at 5:00 PM.

Questions

For any questions regarding your proposal, please contact Marnie Rhoads at marnie.rhoads@duke.edu.