The NULab is once again inviting proposals for seedling grants, travel, and co-sponsorship of events related to digital humanities and computational social science. The deadline is March 1, 2021. Proposals should be submitted to Sarah Connell at sa.connell[at]northeastern[dot]edu. Seedling grant proposals should be no more than 2 pages, and travel and co-sponsorship proposals no more than 1 page.
Information on previously-funded projects is available here: http://www.northeastern.edu/nulab/grants/.
Seedling grants (up to $5000) are intended to support pilot research to begin a longer-term research project. Grant funds could be used for costs such as:
- to pay for RA time on research projects
- to purchase data sets needed for research
- to purchase access to tools, software, or other resources
- to fund travel costs for meetings that are essential to initiate or further a research project
No grant of more than $5000 will typically be awarded in any given case nor will grants totaling more than $5000 be awarded to any single individual in a given year. Any NULab faculty member may apply. Graduate students are also eligible to apply for NULab seedling grants. Any project proposals that include staffing costs should remember to factor in fringe benefits (an additional .0765% for hourly student work) where appropriate when calculating requested funds. Recipients of NULab seedling grants are expected to: provide a project description for inclusion on the NULab website soon after the award, write a blog post on the project once it is underway, and present on the project in an informal work-in-progress session for the Digital Humanities Open Office Hours series.
Travel grants (up to $1000) are intended to support presentation of NULab-related research at conferences, or substantive NULab-relevant professional development, such as attending a workshop. Grant recipients are expected to provide a blog post for the NULab site on the event or on their research and are also expected to give a presentation at a NULab meeting. Graduate students from CSSH, CAMD, and CCIS are eligible to apply. Assistant professors from any department are eligible to apply. No travel funding of more than $1000 will ordinarily be awarded in any given case nor will grants totaling more than $2000 be awarded to any single individual in a given year. Note that the travel funding program is open to graduate students to support travel to present NULab-relevant research or for NULab-relevant professional development. Application is not contingent upon having been accepted to upcoming conferences; we encourage faculty and graduate students to apply for travel grants relating to conferences that they have applied to, even in cases where the conference acceptance notification falls after the NULab grant deadline.
Co-sponsorships (up to $1000) are intended to support NULab-relevant speakers and events, ideally open to the public or bringing a multi-institutional or regional audience to NEU. Any NULab member can apply. Larger requests should make clear the benefit to a broader NULab audience.
For all grants, awarded funds should be spent within one calendar year of the award date.
As the gap between the applications we receive and the resources we have continues to grow, we ask applicants to frame their proposed projects as seedlings and articulate their potential for future growth. That is, proposals should outline the development of new projects (rather than supporting ongoing work in established projects) and should also indicate how these projects might lead to larger initiatives and additional funding opportunities.