KU Racial Equity Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Grants

Program description

Research, scholarship and creative activity supported by the new fund must be innovative or reflect a new application of existing research and have the potential to make a significant contribution to understanding the genesis and impact of inequities based on race, exploring impediments and/or charting a course toward racial equity. Attentive to KU’s vital role as a place-based institution, funding decisions will include as priorities community-engaged projects that address a local problem identified in collaboration with one or more community partners — injecting research, scholarship and/or creative activity to achieve both immediate progress and long-term sustainability while advancing generalizable knowledge and understanding. To address racial equity issues as broadly as possible, funding will be available to all Lawrence and Edwards campus faculty and unclassified academic staff (whether or not tenure-track), without regard for field or discipline. Projects that involve students or partnerships with colleagues at other universities, industry or nonprofit organizations are encouraged.

The Office of Research and the Hall Center’s Research & Grant Development Office will work with awardees to identify and secure external funding to continue or expand the scope of projects, but the potential to attract external funding is not a review criterion.

• Lawrence and Edwards campus faculty and unclassified academic staff (whether or not tenure-track) may submit a proposal individually or as teams.
   
• Incomplete or late applications will not be considered.

Application format

Proposals must be submitted as a SINGLE PDF (including each document listed below) via email to racial-equity-awards@ku.edu by 5 p.m. on Nov. 15.

All proposals must be completed in 11- or 12-point font with single spacing and 1-inch margins on each page.

Incomplete applications will not be considered.
 

Application contents

1. Cover page (1 page)
   Include the following information:
   • Title of the proposal
   • Name and detailed contact information for the lead applicant (title, mailing address, email address, phone number)
   • Department/center that will administer the award
   • Funding amount requested
      

2. Anonymized project narrative (2-3 pages, including abstract, excluding references) 
   Present an abstract of not more than 250 words, followed by a detailed description of your proposal, including answers to these questions:

   • How does the proposed work foster progress toward racial equity?
   • If applicable, what local problem does the project address and how does the proposed work engage one or more community partners?
   • What is novel, innovative and/or inventive about the proposed project?
   • How does the proposed project build upon KU’s existing work and resources in this area rather than duplicate them?
   • What are the metrics and outcomes that will signal success of the project?
   • If applicable, how does the proposed project involve students and/or collaborations with colleagues at other universities, nonprofit organizations or industry partners?

   
   Importantly, the text in the project narrative must be anonymized, omitting names and departmental affiliations of the team members as well as any other individually-identifying information.

   Anonymization guidance
   Proposers are required to write the project narrative for the proposal in an anonymized format, i.e., in a manner that does not explicitly identify the names of the team members or their KU departmental affiliations. Some specific points:

   1. Do not claim ownership of past work, e.g., "My previously funded work..." or "Our prior analysis demonstrates that…"
   2. Do not include the names of the personnel associated with the proposal or their departmental affiliations. This includes, but is not limited to, page headers, footers, diagrams, figures, watermarks, or PDF bookmarks. This does not include references to past work, which should be included whenever relevant (see below).
   3. Do not associate personnel with named teams or collaborations, e.g., “The PI is a member of the ColLAB: KU Research Collaborative.”
   4. When citing references, use third-person neutral wording. This especially applies to self-referencing. For example, replace phrases like "as we have shown in our previous work [17], …" with "as previously shown [17], ..."
   5. As always, reviewers expect proposers to describe past work in the field to put the proposed work into context and explain how the proposed work would improve, build upon, complement, contradict, or complete that past work. Using the above guidelines, proposers should be able to successfully accomplish this in an anonymized manner.

   
   Investigator(s)’ suitability for the proposed research should be described in the biosketch, which will be available to reviewers (along with the proposed budget) during the second phase of review, when applications will no longer be subject to anonymization.

3. PI biosketch (2 pages per PI; if co-PIs, submit for each) 
   ​Similar to the ones for major federal funding agencies, the biosketch should demonstrate current research strength and capacity in the proposed area. It must include professional preparation; current and past positions/appointments; a list of up to 5 most recent publications and/or other outcomes (exhibitions, films, grant proposals for a nonprofit, etc.) closely related to the proposed area; if applicable, a list of applications to externally funded sponsored awards in the last 5 years, including those that are currently awarded or pending (with information about sponsor, duration, budget amount and role of individual); collaborative and/or community-engaged research activities, and other relevant research achievements.
   
   Examples of biosketches:
    
   • NIH biosketch
   • NSF biosketch
      

4. Budget on the KU Racial Equity Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity budget template
   
   Budgets may include funds to cover:

   • Materials and supplies
   • Well-justified non-conference domestic travel for KU personnel. Due to the limited funds available, applicants are encouraged to utilize remote meeting options when feasible for collaborator meetings and data collection. If travel is requested, the applicant should explain the need for in-person travel in their budget narrative.
   • Salary and associated fringe benefits for graduate and/or undergraduate student assistants during the summer.
   • Up to one biweek of salary and associated fringe benefits for the PI and any associated co-PIs.
   • Salary and fringe for other KU staff needed to complete the proposed work.
   • Collaborative activity on the KU campus
      

   Budgets should not include:

   • Subrecipient agreements
   • Foreign travel
   • Conference travel
   • Tuition
   • Indirect costs
   • Equipment (items with a unit cost of $5,000 or above)
   • Cost share. Contributions from other sources are permissible and can be discussed in the project narrative. They should not be included in the budget template.
     
      
5. Budget narrative
   The budget narrative should describe in detail how each cost category on the proposed budget will be used to complete the work proposed, and the timing of expenditures.

All complete and on-time proposals will be reviewed following the deadline by the Racial Equity Award Review Panel.

In an attempt to minimize bias, the Office of Research utilizes an approach to anonymize the identity of applicants for Racial Equity Awards until the second phase of the review process. Our aim in anonymizing proposal narratives is to help reviewers focus on the merit of the proposed research, scholarship or creative activity and limit potential unconscious bias while encouraging applications from investigators who otherwise might not apply due to perceptions of bias.

During the first phase, reviewers will only assess the anonymized project narrative for each proposal — focusing on project merits without taking into account the proposing team qualifications. Reviewers will submit their initial assessments via the program rubric (see below) to the Office of Research. As a final check, and only after the merit evaluation is finalized for all proposals, reviewers will be provided with the PI biosketches and budget to assess the project's feasibility and the qualifications of the team to execute a given proposed project. If there are clear, compelling deficiencies in the expertise required to accomplish the goals of the proposal or serious questions about the project's feasibility within the proposed budget, reviewers may note this in their comments to the Office of Research. This review may not be used to “upgrade” proposals for having particularly strong team qualifications, nor may it be used to re-evaluate the merits of proposals.

Following the two-phase review process, funding recommendations will be provided to the Vice Chancellor for Research for review and final approval within 8 weeks of the application deadline.

Review criteria include:

• Merit and degree of novelty/innovation of proposed work
• Feasibility
• Evidence of the PI(s)’ capacity to lead the proposed work

Reviewers will assess these criteria using the KU Racial Equity Award Reviewer Rubric & Feedback Form. Applicants are encouraged to consult this rubric as they write their proposals.

The Office of Research and the review committee reserve the right to ask applicants to revise their proposals, and funding may be awarded for lesser amounts than requested.

The Office of Research will inform successful applicants after the selection process is complete. Awardees will then work with Pre-Award Services to complete the proposal review process, including securing any applicable compliance approvals. All applicants will be provided with comments and feedback from the review panels.

1. All KU Office of Research policies and procedures, including research compliances, must be followed.
    
2. Rebudgets over 10% of total award amount must be approved by the Office of Research. Any rebudgeting must still adhere to the budget requirements of the proposal.
    
3. All funds must be expended within 24 months of receiving the Racial Equity Award. A one-year no-cost extension may be requested at the end of award duration if additional work needs to be completed. Unused funds will be retained by the Office of Research to support future Racial Equity Award competitions.
    
4. Awardees will be asked to serve as reviewers for internal awards and/or limited submissions when their award is complete.

Grantees will communicate any project developments, challenges and/or achievements — such as evidence of positive changes for the community or in relevant public policy, publications, external grant applications, invention disclosures, patents or patent applications, conference presentations, creative work, press releases, licenses, etc. — to racial-equity-awards@ku.edu as soon as possible, and for up to three years beyond the initial funding period, so that they can be disseminated through KU Research and KU News. Any publications (or other “products”) arising from this request for proposals should acknowledge that it was "Made possible through support from a KU Racial Equity Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity Grant."

• A final report will be submitted to racial-equity-awards@ku.edu within 120 days of the project end date. The report must:
  • Summarize the extent to which original proposal goals and objectives have been achieved, highlighting metrics for measuring project success as included in the proposal.
  • Highlight any other significant achievements and outcomes.
  • Address plans for future work.

Grantees who do not submit final reports within 120 days of the award close date will not be eligible for future Office of Research funding opportunities.