We are pleased to announce the launch of the Limited Submission – Mellon Foundation – 2021 Sawyer Seminars competition.
The Sawyer Seminar program supports comparative research on historical and contemporary topics of major scholarly significance by funding seminars that bring together faculty, visiting scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from a variety of fields mainly, but not exclusively, the arts, humanities and interpretive social sciences.
We encourage interested faculty to participate in an informational workshops offered on February 24, 2021, 12:45-1:30pm. If you are interested please RSVP to caroline@ucsc.edu, so that we might customize the presentation and send you the zoom meeting link As a courtesy, this opportunity is being shared with all divisions. Click on the link below to view more information. Thank you!
- Internal Submission Deadline: Monday, March 1, 2021
- Award Cycle: 2021
- Discipline/Subject Area: Humanities, Arts, Interpretive Social Sciences
- Funding Available: 225,000
- Foundation Name: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
- Foundation Program Name: Sawyer Seminars on Comparative Study and Cultures
- Description:A joint announcement from the
Offices of Research and Corporate and Foundation RelationsInternal Deadline: March 1st 2021
Funder: The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Program Guidelines: Sawyer Seminars on Comparative Study and CulturesUCSC Contacts:
Caroline Rodriguez | CFR | caroline@ucsc.edu
John MacMillan | OR | jomacmil@ucsc.eduAward Amount & Terms: $225,000
Overview
UC Santa Cruz has been invited to submit a single proposal for the Mellon Foundation’s Sawyer Seminars program. The Sawyer Seminar program supports comparative research on historical and contemporary topics of major scholarly significance by funding seminars that bring together faculty, visiting scholars, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from a variety of fields mainly, but not exclusively, the arts, humanities and interpretive social sciences. In June 2015, UC Santa Cruz was awarded a Sawyer Seminar grant for Non-citizenship, a project led by Prof. Cat Ramirez during 2016-17. In 2018 UC Santa Cruz was awarded its second Sawyer Seminar grant for Beyond the End of the World, a project led by Prof. T.J. Demos during 2018-2020.
To initiate the campus selection process, we invite faculty to submit pre-proposals per the guidelines below. We especially welcome proposals that cross-departmental and disciplinary boundaries and take advantage of the interdisciplinary culture of the campus.
Proposals will be judged on the significance of the subject of inquiry, the aptness of plans for seminar meetings, the opportunities they present for comparative study, the rationale of comparisons, and on the scholarly accomplishments of the participants.
Proposal Development Workshops
We have organized an informational workshop to provide an overview of the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Program and to address possible approaches to the conceptualization and writing of the proposal. Staff from Research Development and CFR will be available to consult with faculty outside of this workshop as well. We strongly encourage you to consult the Mellon website to review the information that is provided about this program, including the seminars that have been funded in past years.
To apply
To be considered for nomination, materials should be submitted to the internal campus competition via InfoReady, https://ucsc.infoready4.com/, as follows:
Select “Apply” from the menu on the right-hand side.
Required Documents for Internal Campus Submission1. Preproposal 1-2 pages
Faculty are invited to submit a brief pre-proposal (1-2 pages) outlining the proposed topic of their seminar, and including the names of potential collaborators both on and off campus. As you consider possible topics for the pre-proposal, please pay particular attention to the criteria that the Mellon Foundation has articulated for the full-length proposals: Proposals should describe:
(1) The rationale for raising the central questions to be addressed and the potential significance of the inquiry to be pursued;
(2) The cases to be studied (e.g., nations, regions, time periods, cultural trends, social tensions) and the perspectives to be brought to bear on them;
(3) The thematic “threads” that will run through the seminar;
(4) The institution’s resources and suitability for the proposed seminar; and
(5) The procedures to be used in selecting graduate and postdoctoral fellows.2. Project Timeline (1 page)
Past experience suggests that it can take a year or more to organize the seminars, so they need not be scheduled for the coming academic year.
3. Budget and Simple Justification (1 page)
Funding requests should not exceed $225,000 for each seminar. Each seminar’s budget must provide for a postdoctoral fellowship to be awarded for the year the seminar meets, and two graduate student dissertation fellowships to be awarded for the seminar year or the year that follows. The amounts for postdoctoral fellowship awards and dissertation fellowship stipends should follow institutional practices. To acknowledge the sustained intellectual involvement of these graduate students in the seminar, institutions may include tuition support or, for those funded by existing fellowships, supplementary support such as research and travel funds. Travel and living expenses for short stays by visiting scholars and the costs of coordinating the seminar, including those incurred for speakers and their travel, may also be included. Funds may not cover released time for regular faculty participants, rentals of university space, or indirect costs.Timeline
Proposal Workshop
February 24, 2021, 12:45-1:30pm
CFR and RD will host informational zoom sessions about the foundation with representatives from campus to answer any internal process questions. If you are interested please RSVP to caroline@ucsc.edu, so that we might customize the presentation and send you the zoom meeting link.Deadlines
March 1: Internal applications due to InfoReady
March 12, 2020: Candidates notified
May 3, 2021: Final Submission to Mellon
September 2021: Announcement of funded projects (~10 projects will be funded out of an ~15-20 submissions.)Special Instructions:
If you are selected as a campus nominee, you will need to promptly submit your proposal intake form prior to UCSC’s Internal Institutional Deadlines. For proposal support, or for any questions about institutional requirements, please send requests and questions to the research development team at resdev@ucsc.edu. A proposal development specialist will field your requests.Original Call Sent: January 26, 2021
The Office Corporate and Foundation Relations is a unit of University Relations. The CFR team creates and maintains mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with private organizations, matching grant initiatives with educational and research programs and centers. CFR supports faculty and staff to identify and approach these and other private foundations and corporations for funding, to assist in strategic positioning of the grant application, and to facilitate funder campus visits.
For a list of recent funding opportunities, please visit the CFR website. CFR Calls for Funding