Research Resources

Jeff Meserve, the Assistant Director of Research Development at the Humanities Institute, has graciously offered to assist COFA faculty with routing external grants and fellowship proposals to the Office of Sponsored Projects. Jeff will specifically help faculty with the following:

• Proposal development
• Budget preparation support
• Grant submission

Jeff Meserve will not help faculty members identify appropriate grant and fellowship opportunities for which to apply. To identify opportunities that fit their research goals, faculty members should use the resources provided by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors, as well as their own discipline-specific professional networks.

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW JEFF CAN ASSIST APPLICANTS

SUBMIT PROPOSALS FOR JEFF'S REVIEW

Once a faculty member has been awarded funding, the accounts manager in their unit will assist with the following:

• Post award grant management
• Making purchases with the awarded funding
• Financial oversight
• Reporting

We are excited to support COFA faculty with their innovative research. Good luck with your projects!

The Fine Arts Creative Research Grant is a competitive application for research funding to support direct costs of a College of Fine Arts faculty member’s research project during one academic year. The amount awarded will be in response to the submitted budget but will not exceed $10,000. This is funded from a college endowment and the annual budget for the program is $80,000.

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. Applicants must attend one session on How to Write A Successful Grant.

• Session 1: September 13, 2024, 9 -10 a.m., Kendra Scott Center
• Session 2: October 30, 2024, 3-4:30 p.m., DFA 4.106
• Session 3: November 15, 2024, 9-10 a.m., Kendra Scott Center

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 and the expected impact of the research project. In addition, proposals from assistant-rank faculty members and 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.

To apply, please submit an application here by December 2, 2024:

• Curriculum Vitae
• Project Proposal, including:
  • Brief description or abstract of the research project
  • Description of the specific activities this funding will support
  • Benefits, anticipated impact, and expected outcome of 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 March 3, 2025 and will be accessible until August 31, 2026.

Faculty members who receive this funding will be required to submit a post-award report, explaining how the funding was used and what benefit resulted from it, within 120 days of the end of access of this financial resource.

• Example Application 1
• Example Application 2

To incentivize application for external grant funding the College of Fine Arts and the Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship and Creative Endeavors will jointly fund $10,000 each to the Fine Arts Co-Sponsorship Grant. The co-sponsorship grant will provide up to $2,000 in research funding to any PI or co-PI who is awarded external grant funding. The grant is intended to help faculty cover direct costs during the first academic year of their sponsored research, related to lower-level expenses that accrue over the course of a project, such as documentation, copyright, licensing fees, field travel, and/or equipment. Faculty should expect to cover larger scale expenses with funding from the awarded external grant.

This co-sponsorship grant will be automatic upon receipt of completed application described below. Awards will be made as applications are received, until this program’s annual funding allocation of $20,000 is exhausted. Therefore, this program has a rolling deadline that never expires.

• College of Fine Arts’ faculty with PI or Co-PI status.
• Award must support faculty research, projects, or creation of work. Awards for educational program development, or student fellowship support only are ineligible.
• COFA Co-PIs will only receive up to $2,000 per funded grant, not per collaborator.
• Award must be a minimum of $8,000 awarded to UT the entity, and not directly to the PI.
• Sub awards greater than $8,000 to UT from another university are eligible.

To apply, please send the following applications materials to Tim Creswick via e-mail at timcreswick@austin.utexas.edu.

• Award letter or confirmation of award from granting organization, including dollar amount and terms of award.
• Grant proposal submitted to the organization.
• Budget submitted with grant proposal to the organization.
• Copies of the grant application’s peer reviews if available.

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 (total $80,000) 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.

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.

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. Applicants must attend one session on How to Write A Successful Grant.

• Session 1: September 13, 2024, 9-10 a.m., Kendra Scott Center
• Session 2: October 30, 2024, 3-4:30 p.m., DFA 4.106
• Session 3: November 15, 2024, 9-10 a.m., Kendra Scott Center

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.

To apply please submit an application here by Dec. 2, 2024. Your application should include the following.

• Curriculum Vitae
• 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  March  3, 2025 and will be accessible until August 31, 2026.

Faculty members who receive this funding will be required to submit a post-award report, explaining how the funding was used and what benefit resulted from it, within 120 days of the end of access of this financial resource.

• Example Application 1
• Example Application 2

College of Fine Arts

• Dean’s Fellow (recommended by Chair/Director)
• Fine Arts Creative Research Grant (see above)
• Fine Arts Co-Sponsorship Grant (see above section)
• Fine Arts Community Engagement and Public Practice Seed Grant (see above section)

Office of the VP for Research

• Open Calls Grant & Award Opportunities
• VPR Research and Creative Grants (RCG)
• VPR Special Research Grants (SRG)
• VPR Subvention Grants
• VPR Limited Submission Programs
• Bridging Barriers
• ConTex
  • Comprehensive list of research engagement possibilities:
    • Research Centers in Mexico [PDF, 290 KB]
    • Technology Parks in Mexico [PDF, 46.2 KB]

Office of the Executive VP & Provost

• Faculty Development Leave (FDL) (usually due September/October)
• Faculty Development Award (FDA) (usually due September/October)
• Faculty Travel Grants (ongoing deadline)
• Cluster and Interdisciplinary Hiring Initiative
• Provost’s Authors Fellows

Center for Teaching and Learning

• Please visit the website for the Center for Teaching and Learning, and click on “Grants & Fellowships,” tab in menu header to find current information for our most recent calls for proposals for grants.
• Provost’s Teaching Fellows
• Instructor Learning Community Grants
• DIY Microgrants

Other opportunities

• HornRaiser – Crowdfunding
• There may be additional financial opportunities provided by departments

• Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP) – OSP is the coordinating office for externally funded research and sponsored projects at UT-Austin. They assist research faculty and staff with the following: proposal review, authorization, and submission; award negotiations and acceptance; account management; close-out, reports, audits, collection; professional development and education; export control, and research compliance.
• Pivot – Funding Opportunity Database – Pivot is a database that allows researchers to quickly discover the right funding opportunities.
• VPR Cross-College Grant Support – The VPR office helps coordinate interdisciplinary proposals and collaborates with faculty to organize proposal drafting efforts, solicit external reviews of draft proposals, facilitate the internal review and submission process, and support the establishment of an award management strategy upon receipt of funding.
• UT Office of the VP for Research – This office provides funding, education, and resources for researchers on campus.
• Humanities Institute Support – Jeff Meserve, the Assistant Director of Research Development at the Humanities Institute, will assist COFA faculty with grant proposals pre-award.
• UT Office of Technology Commercialization – This office evaluates, protects, markets, and licenses the university’s inventions and software, assists in the formation of startups, provides outreach and informative forums to the university’s faculty on the commercialization processes, and promotes collaboration with industry, investors, and others within the technology commercialization ecosystem.
  • Regents Rule 90101: Intellectual Property
• Research Development Newsletter – email vp-research-sr@austin.utexas.edu to be added to the listserv.

• COFA Leave Policy
• COFA Reassignment of Duties Form [PDF, 96.6 KB]

• Hamilton Book Awards
• Co-op Research Awards (Career, Best Paper, Creative)
• VPR Honors and Recognition Showcase

• Department/School purchasing staff will assist with all purchases and subcontract agreements you do using external grant funding that is routed through UT Austin. Follow all normal department/school purchasing procedures using the assigned external grant funding account.
• The faculty PI should track their own budget and expenditures from their external grant. Department/school staff and OSP staff can assist with meeting reporting requirements of the grant.
• Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP) – OSP is the coordinating office for externally funded research and sponsored projects at UT-Austin. They assist research faculty and staff with the following: proposal review, authorization, and submission; award negotiations and acceptance; account management; close-out, reports, audits, collection; professional development and education; export control, and research compliance.