Deadline: 5:00 PM on Friday, November 11, 2022

Provost’s Digital Innovation Grants (PDIGs), a recurring GC Digital Initiatives program, provide financial support to doctoral students at the CUNY Graduate Center as they design and develop digital scholarship that makes a clear contribution to the GC’s research, teaching, and service mission. Since 2012, the Provost’s Digital Innovation Grants have supported a range of inventive projects across the disciplines, including: an online, open-access, crowdsourced database of mentor relationships within the field of writing studies; an app to support street medics and promote health and safety among activist communities; and a computational analysis of Cold War diplomatic history. 

This year, PDIGs are funded through a National Endowment for the Humanities American Rescue Plan grant and will also include applications from master’s students. 

Training Grants, Start-Up Grants, and Implementation Grants support individual Ph.D. students through travel, training, and project support. Award recipients will be expected to have participated in all activities for Training Grants, and to have completed all work on projects for Start-Up and Implementation Grants by summer 2023. 

Training Grants are awards of up to $500 to support travel, daily expenses, and/or registration for students to attend workshops, boot camps, or short courses in digital skill development, or to participate in unconferences, code sprints, or hackathons. Students will be expected to write a short blog post about what they learned and may be asked to consult with future applicants who are considering a similar training event or activity. 

Start-Up Grants are awards of up to $2,000 to support the planning and creation of a digital research project by an individual or a team. Projects may include the creation of new computational methods or techniques for a particular field of study, including research, preservation, or public-facing scholarship. They also could include the development of a prototype, wireframe, or best practices model for continued research. Successful applicants will be asked to share a description of their project on the Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant website and to write a white paper upon completion of the grant that will also be published on our website. Additionally, grantees will be expected to present publicly on their work in progress during the academic year.  This includes presenting at the 2023 Digital GC Showcase in May and participating in occasional collaborative meetings and discussions with current and past grantees.

Implementation Grants are awards of up to $6,000 to support the continued development, growth, and deployment of an individual or team project that has successfully completed an initial start-up phase. These projects may need continued funding in order to be refined for public audiences. They may need additional resources to make a tool presentable to an academic audience or to improve the design of an early prototype based on feedback and evaluation. Implementation Grants should offer some form of innovative approach to a recognizable challenge in the applicant’s scholarly field. Successful applicants will be asked to share a description  on the Provost’s Digital Innovation Grant website and to write a white paper upon completion of the grant that will also be published on our website.  Additionally, grantees will be expected to present publicly on their work in progress during the academic year. This includes presenting at the 2023 Digital GC Showcase, and participating in occasional collaborative meetings and discussions with current and past grantees.

GC Digital Initiatives is committed to the use, development, and support of open source technologies and open access to scholarly materials as a practice in generous academic citizenship. 

GCDI will offer consultations to students who are interested in receiving feedback on draft proposals over the summer.

To Apply: Complete the form at http://cuny.is/pdig22-23, including uploading narratives, curriculum vitae, and budget requests. 

Applications are due on Friday, November 11 by 5 PM. All applicants must be registered Graduate Center Ph.D. or masters’ students in good standing. 

Applications for Training Grants include the following sections:

1. 1. Applicant information: name and full contact information, including email, mailing address, and phone number where we can reach you.
   2. Type of training you propose to attend: title, website, time, date, and location of the training or activity to be attended.
   3. Abstract: a one-paragraph abstract summarizing the type of training or other activity that the applicant would like to use funding to participate in and how it will be useful to the student’s continued pursuit of research goals.
   4. Narrative: A 1-page description of the training or other activity that the applicant would like to participate, an explication of how the skills will further the applicant’s research goals, why the training could be useful for scholars in the applicant’s particular field, and ways in which the applicant’s participation could be made useful to other students at the GC. Please also describe any further research activities, papers, or scholarly work that would be made possible by participating in the proposed activity.
   5. Budget (max $500): a detailed account of travel, registration, housing, or other expenses related to attending the event.
   6. A short CV

Applications for Start-Up or Implementation Grants must include the following sections:

1. Applicant information: name and full contact information of the project lead (who must be a doctoral student at the GC in good academic standing) including email, mailing address, and phone number where we can reach you.
2. Abstract: a one-paragraph abstract summarizing the innovative contributions of the project.
3. List of participants: a list of participants involved in the project (include title/affiliation for each participant).
4. Narrative: a 1-2 page description of the nature and goals of the project and the work that has already been completed (if any).
5. Work plan: a brief roadmap of planned activities with a timetable tied to project goals.
6. Budget justification (max $2,000 for Start-Up or $6,000 for Implementation): an explanation of how and why funds will be spent on particular activities, services, or purchases (funds can be used for any aspect of the project, but must be justified in this section).
7. Appendices: Short CVs of major project participants and any ancillary material.
8. Faculty reference: Name and contact information for a faculty mentor or advisor who knows about and can speak to its merits. 

Parts 1-6 of Start-Up and Implementation grant proposals should not exceed 10 pages.
Proposals will be evaluated by a review committee according to the following criteria:

• Scholarly excellence and innovation of the project;
• Contribution of the project to the development and promotion of the mission of the CUNY Graduate Center;
• Contribution of the project to the larger scholarly community and to the public;
• Experience of the project staff;
• Likelihood that work can be accomplished within the proposed budget and time period.
• Given the GC Digital Initiatives’ strong commitment to open-access scholarship and free software platforms, preference is given to projects that use open-source tools and that focus on making work publicly accessible.

Please direct any questions to Lisa Rhody, Deputy Director of Digital Initiatives at lrhody at gc.cuny.edu.