Humboldt Princeton
Call for proposals for funding
Princeton University and Humboldt University will be earmarking resources to build durable ties through faculty-designed collaborations. The goal behind this partnership is to create the capacity for faculty and students to enhance and sustain academic cooperation by moving back and forth across borders with the institutional support of their home and host universities. Faculty in departments, schools, institutes and programs will be invited to submit proposals that promote collaborations between faculty and students at Princeton and Humboldt University.
Under the “Memorandum of Strategic Partnership between Princeton University and Humboldt University” (herein after referred to as “MOU”), Humboldt University (HU) and Princeton University will support departments, programs, and centers seeking resources to sustain on-going teaching and research collaborations. The goal is to create programs for students and faculty to move back and forth across borders with the institutional support of their home and host universities as part of enduring collaborative teaching and research ventures. Proposals will be submitted to a Joint Governance Committee comprised of faculty and senior administrators from both universities.
Bilateral collaborative research and teaching ventures should include a balanced representation of scholars from both institutions. Applicants are required to meet any national requirements for funding and follow the general regulations of their respective university. Applications that do not meet these requirements will not be considered. This initiative does not encompass student exchange programs for semester and academic year study abroad. All inquiries for graduate and undergraduate study abroad programs should be directed to: HU – International Office (www.aia.hu-berlin.de), Princeton – Office of International Programs (http://www.princeton.edu/oip/).
Three types of proposals will be considered:
A. Smaller seed grants, e.g. to enable clusters of faculty and graduate students to convene to explore prospects for future collaborations including external funding opportunities. Maximum support: $10,000.
B. Medium size grants, e.g. for joint graduate-student workshops. Maximum support: $50,000 for two years.
C. Large grants for two years activity. Maximum support: $300,000.
These proposals may include, but are not limited to:
1. For undergraduates:
a. Department-designed and led initiatives focused on joint courses or internship programs. These may include Policy Task Forces, Junior Seminars, and summer laboratory internships. What will be important is that these initiatives fit within – and indeed embellish by internationalizing – the applying department’s curriculum.
b. As much as possible, we encourage applicants to consider ways of integrating students and faculty from a partner institution into these initiatives. A Junior Seminar, for instance, could involve a co-taught course with students and faculty from both sides. The summer laboratory internships could involve direct student and faculty exchanges.
2. For graduate students:
Travel allowances for residencies abroad, for Princeton students in Berlin and for HU students in Princeton. Applicants should indicate where they would like their students to have a home abroad in the course of their studies and research with quid pro quos for graduate students from the partner institution.
3. For Post-doctoral appointments:
Appointments for up to two years. Applicants and their partners will benefit from a joint post-doc who will divide her/his time between the two institutions and be embedded within a collaborative research project.
4. Travel allowances:
For faculty residencies for faculty wishing to spend significant (that is, beyond a single conference) time at a strategic partner institution, HU for Princeton faculty or Princeton for HU faculty, as part of an on-going research and teaching collaboration. The duration of these residencies may vary by unit or discipline, so may the time period. Some may be for summers. Others may take place over the academic year, from one week during one of the semester breaks, to a month or more. It will be important that such proposals involve consultation with chairs or directors as they may involve modifications to how faculty expedite their teaching and advising.
5. None of the above.
If applying departments or centers have ideas that conform to the overall objective of this partnership-building process, we welcome them and early discussions with the Director of the Council for International Teaching and Research at Princeton or the International Strategy Office at Humboldt University.
We strongly encourage interested parties to begin the process of internal discussion and consultation with their chairs, directors, or in full faculty meetings. While these initiatives should conform to the university’s emphasis on internationalization through bottom-up, faculty-led ventures, they should not come at the expense of a department’s commitments to students and colleagues.
General Considerations
- Preference given to initiatives that contribute to the internationalization of departments, centers, or programs
- Preference given to projects that enhance research activities in departments, centers and programs
- Preference given to proposals that sustain flows both ways between Princeton and HU
- Preference given to proposals that convincingly develop plans to generate external funding
Criteria for project selection
- Important criteria in the selection process include:Quality and innovativeness of the research or teaching project,
- Feasibility of the plan,
- Cost-effectiveness of the budgetary plan,
- Plans to obtain additional external funding/ Prospects for sustainability beyond the terms of the grant,
- Competence and expertise of the teams of scholars,
- Effective communication and cooperation between the faculty in each country and added value of the collaboration, mobility of researchers and students between the participating countries.
Proposal Requirements and Evaluation Process
All applications will be reviewed by the Princeton-Humboldt Joint Governance Committee and will be ranked according to the criteria above.
Applicants of a bilateral collaborative project within this call must submit their joint application to their respective university. The joint application has to be accompanied by a specific “Princeton University – Humboldt University Application Form”. All documents and respective forms must be submitted in English.
Applications arriving late and applications not meeting the requirements will not be considered. No legal entitlement can be derived from the submission of a project description.
Two stage proposal process
Stage 1:
Submission of a letter of intent that includes a short project description and explanation for how the initiative fits into the sponsoring unit’s international research and teaching objectives. Chairs and directors, if not the authors of the letter, must approve in advance. First stage applications should include:
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Grant Application Form with name and address of the principle investigators,
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Joint summary of project intent (one page maximum, 12pt and 1.5 line spacing),
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Due February 28, 2013
- Notification March 15, 2013
- At or before notification, the Princeton Council for International Teaching and Research director and HU’s International Strategy Office will provide feedback to the proposers regarding the suitability of the initiative and about key issues the Stage 2 proposal should address.
Stage 2:
Submission of the full proposal with an accompanying narrative project description of no more than 12 pages that includes:
- A completed Grant Application Form
- An overview description of the field of study and general intellectual context of the project suitable for a non-specialist audience; please address what is new about this initiative if it is part of an on-going relationship
- An explanation of how the proposal will promote global aspirations and longer term programming of the home unit
- An explanation of how it will engage Princeton/HU scholars and students in the partnership
- A detailed plan for the operation and activities of the initiative
- Explanation of the profile and interests of sponsoring departments or units and why and how they complement each other
- A description of funding contributions from sponsoring units and a strategy for longer-term support for the initiative's sustainability, especially for larger grant proposals.
In addition to the narrative, you should submit:
- CV’s for principal participants at Princeton and HU (individual professional bibliographies are not required)
- Letters of participation and support from members the sponsoring units who plan to participate in partnership activities
- Approval of the relevant Princeton and HU chairs, deans or directors
- Year-by-year budget with amounts specified by category (travel, hosting, salary etc.), plus annual totals. Please specify the number, status (graduate, undergraduate, faculty etc.) and approximate lengths of stay of the persons you intend to exchange under the project. NOTE: Budgets cannot support hiring of administrative staff.
- A discussion of any additional resources (office or laboratory space, library access etc.) required for the project and of their availability
- Indication of additional financial support from host units or external grants.
Application Deadline:
- Due April 30, 2013
- Notification by June 7, 2013
All proposals must be submitted in English by faculty members on both sides simultaneously to representatives at HU (International Strategy Office) and Princeton (Council for International Teaching and Research).
All proposals will be evaluated and ranked by three to six faculty members on both sides. These evaluations and rankings will be rendered to the Joint Governance Committee which will make all final decision.
All grants require annual reports to be submitted at the end of each year of the grant: September 1st.
Submission
For Princeton, stage 1 and 2 proposals are to be submitted in MSWord or .pdf format by email to Sharon Kulik sakulik@Princeton.EDU, 8-6592) no later than 5 pm (EST) on the designated due dates.
For HU, stage 1 and 2 proposals are to be submitted in MSWord or .pdf format by email to Claudia Schmidt-Memmler claudia.schmidt@hu-berlin.de, no later than 5 pm (CET) on the designated due dates.
Contact Information
For more information, for Princeton, contact Jeremy Adelman, Director of the Council for International Teaching and Research, adelman@princeton.edu, or Sharon Kulik, Assistant to the Director, sakulik@Princeton.EDU.
For HU, contact Claudia Schmidt-Memmler, International Strategy Office claudia.schmidt@hu-berlin.de, for more information.