Scholarly or Creative Projects

What is a Scholarly or Creative Project?

This category of projects includes scholarly or creative activities eventually leading to results that are subject to publication, exhibition, or other forms of professional peer review. Examples of acceptable expenses include travel to research sites, consumable materials for science labs and art studios, library user fees, and photocopying. The maximum allowable expenses for any one scholarly or creative project is $1,500 per semester or $3,000 for summer projects.

Pilot Program: As part of a new pilot program, faculty who know they will have project expenses that exceed the maximum amounts available for a one-semester or summer Scholarly/Creative Project may request up to $6,000 in ONE application. This number represents the maximum amount of Scholarly/Creative Project funding available to a faculty member over the course of one year.

R&D will fund a maximum of FIVE such requests per year. Faculty interested in this option are required to submit their application for the first deadline of the academic year on August 8, 2025. These applications will be evaluated based on merit, as typical, but will also be evaluated based on the need for a lump sum rather than funding spread out over the year. Priority will be given to applicants who have not received full-year Scholarly/Creative Project grant funding in the previous two years. Faculty who are awarded one of these larger grants will not be eligible to apply for additional Scholarly/Creative Project funding until the following academic year. Faculty members who apply for, but do not receive a lump-sum grant will still be eligible to apply for Scholarly/Creative Project funding according to the regular deadlines and amounts.

Criteria for selecting the larger lump sum grants:

• A compelling rationale for a lump sum rather than funding spread out over the year.
• Time sensitivity.
• Ability to convey the relevance of the project to a lay audience.
• History of compliance with R&D reports and accounting requirements.
• Tenured or tenure-track faculty will be given preference.

What criteria are used to determine funding?

R&D generally looks to the overall quality of the proposal. You must describe the project and its importance to your discipline or academic field, in language comprehensible to readers who are not experts in your field.  Specifically, projects should have high intrinsic value and intellectual or creative merit -- posing a significant question, exploring an important issue, addressing a challenging problem, or expressing an artistic idea.

• In order to assess the merit of your proposal, project descriptions should be written in a form that is comprehensible to all members of the R&D committee. 
• Projects should also hold out the promise of making worthwhile contributions to your field or discipline.
• Projects should be well-conceived, with achievable goals, a realistic schedule, and an accurate budget.

Special Instructions for Creative Projects

Application Process:

• Please complete this online form with proposal application information at this link. R&D Application
• Your application should include the following information:
  • Nature of the problem or opportunity and goals for the project 
  • Project plan: methodology, research design, strategy 
  • Timeline (schedule of the project) 
  • Anticipated outcome of the project and how it is to be evaluated
  • Additional Instructions
• If you have any difficulties or questions, please contact randd@dickinson.edu.

You are strongly encouraged to apply for external (non-Dickinson) funding for all R&D projects. Please contact the Corporate, Foundation and Government Support Office for more information. 

Please be sure to check for application deadlines (click on Deadlines). 

For instructions on reporting, please click on the Expense Reporting and Narrative Reports.