The Center for Social Science Scholarship Small Research Grants for UMBC faculty are intended to provide crucial support for research, presentation, and travel for research purposes.
Awards are made to full-time tenured/tenure-track faculty, lecturers, and adjunct faculty in the social sciences at UMBC who have already exhausted all other relevant/available university support—including but not limited to such sources as DRIF, departmental funding, and the CAHSS Travel Fund.
Please note, as of 10/11/21: Applicants should not simultaneously apply to more than one CAHSS research center small grant programs for faculty and PhD students (e.g., the Dresher Center’s Scholarly Completion Fund, Scholarly Development Fund, or Rapid Response Awards, or CIRCA’s Contingency Fund). Applicants should first apply to the center that best suits the nature of their project and receive a determination on that application, before requesting funding from another center. In such cases, please indicate whether funding has already been applied for and/or received from one of the other centers.
An individual faculty member may receive a maximum of $1,500 per award. Expenses will be incurred by the awardee, and the final reimbursable amount will be transferred to the awardee’s home department. Note that salary support for the applicant is not permitted, and funds must be requested from CS3 within a calendar year of any award notice.
Awards will be made on a rolling basis and will be offered until the center’s available funding for this program has been exhausted. Preference will be given to faculty who have not recently received (within the past 6 semesters) a CS3 Small Research Grant and according to the strength of the justification for the request.
Faculty wishing to apply should prepare a brief (less than one page) letter of need explaining the research-related purpose for the funds, a projected timeline for their use, the precise amount of the request, and why a Small Research Grant would make a difference in the scholarly goals of the applicant. Reference should also be made to which funds the applicant has already used and why no other support is available/sufficient for this need.
Faculty should submit an email containing their application to Christine Mallinson, Director of the Center for Social Science Scholarship. Include the subject line, “Small Research Grant request.” In addition, a separate email is required from the Department Chair, affirming that all other relevant/available funds have already been tapped; this email must be received before the application can be considered.
Once completed applications are received, materials will be reviewed as soon as possible in consultation with Advisory Board members, and the Director will respond with a determination on the request. All efforts will be made to provide a decision to the applicant within two weeks.