October 7, 2019
Dear Colleagues,
The Plan for Pitt calls for us to continue to seek out innovative ways to increase the impact of the excellent research happening across the University. This year, the Office of the Provost and the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Research have collaborated to find ways to both enhance and streamline internal funding opportunities while continuing to support high-quality research, scholarship, and creative endeavors.
The result of our efforts are the Pitt Momentum Funds. These funds have been created by supplementing existing research funding with newly designated money from the Office of the Provost and the Office of Research.
Pitt Momentum Funds will continue to support high-quality research, scholarship, and creative endeavors, but now at three distinct scales. The Momentum Funds integrate and extend the Central Research Development Fund (CRDF), the Social Science Research Initiative (SSRI), and the Special Initiative to Promote Scholarly Activities in the Humanities (SIPSAH). To complement those existing resources, the Momentum Funds bring new resources to support multi-year grants that will strengthen Pitt’s support for large-scale, team-based research endeavors.
The aligned and expanded Momentum Funds provide transformative scholarship support for interdisciplinary teams of faculty from at least three schools with approximately six new one-year planning (or “teaming”) grants of $60,000, and two new two-year scaling grants at $400,000.
The suite of funds provides three opportunities for faculty:
- Seeding Grants (up to $16,000 for one year with supplements of $2,000 available to projects integrating undergraduate research experiences) emphasize support for individual faculty as they develop new projects. The portfolio of awards will emphasize early career faculty or faculty working in scholarly fields where external funding is limited. Small groups of faculty may also apply.
- Teaming Grants (up to $60,000 for one year) help multi-disciplinary teams plan and build capacity to successfully pursue large-scale external funding and must include faculty from at least three schools, as defined in the application materials.
- Scaling Grants (up to $400,000 for two years) enable multi-disciplinary teams to competitively scale their research efforts in targeted pursuit of large-scale external funding and must include faculty from at least three schools.
More information on eligibility, application processes, evaluation criteria, exclusions, and participation requirements is available through the Pitt Research Office of Sponsored Programs.
As well, information sessions will be hosted in the William Pitt Union, Dining Room B, on Wednesday, October 16 at 3 p.m., and Thursday, October 17 at noon. Expressions of interest will be accepted beginning October 9, and the deadline for grant applications is November 25.
We believe that the creation of the Pitt Momentum Funds is a vital step forward in making sure faculty members have a range of funding types available to support their ideas and work.
Please share this important development with your faculty and, if you should have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us.
Best,
Ann E. Cudd
Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor
Rob A. Rutenbar
Senior Vice Chancellor for Research