By Terry Kosdrosky and Charlotte Ezzo

Public Engagement & Impact, National Center for Institutional Diversity

The National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) has created several sources of funding for faculty and staff to collaborate within and across disciplinary fields to produce and disseminate their scholarship on important societal issues.

“For U-M to truly realize its goal of transformational impact on the world, public engagement and DEI initiatives must be linked,” said NCID Director Tabbye M. Chavous. “That’s why we are investing in initiatives that facilitate and support the use of scholarship to advance equity, inclusion, and social justice in our society. These initiatives include efforts to achieve more effective and mutually beneficial university-community relationships and to support diversity scholars in developing the skills for engaging and disseminating their work with multiple public stakeholders, including policymakers, practitioners, and local communities.”

Among the funding sources:

• Think-Act Tanks mobilize multi-disciplinary, -institutional, and -generational collaborative research teams to advance diversity scholarship that has a public impact. Proposals due Dec. 3.

• Knowledge Communities allow U-M staff and faculty to actively collaborate on scholarship-to-practice initiatives that drive institutional transformation on campus and across the country. Applications due Dec. 3.

• Grants to Support Research and Scholarship for Change are available to members of the U-M community to support their work on innovative projects that will positively impact academia and society. Click here to see past grant recipients. Applications due Jan. 28.

• Pop-Up Grants provide opportunities for scholars to actively engage in diversity scholarship around emerging social issues and disseminate findings quickly to the public. Scholars may apply for up to $2,000 in funding for a six-month grant period. Click here to see past grant recipients. Requests for proposals are announced throughout the year.

In addition, writing stipends are available for members of the Diversity Scholars Network to contribute to the NCID’s Public Writing Publication. Some recent topics include “Voting While Black,” “Against Forced Disclosure of Marginalized Identities As Casual Icebreakers,” and series such as, “University Faculty Are Change Agents,” and “The Use of the Bible to Justify Inequality and Advance Social Justice.”

“A key mission of the NCID is to produce, catalyze, elevate, and disseminate diversity scholarship — that is, research and scholarship that furthers our understanding of historical and contemporary social issues and challenges facing our world, from equitable educational access, to economic inequalities, to health disparities, to intergroup conflict, among others,” said Chavous. “Diversity scholarship plays a critical role in addressing and positively affecting these social issues.”

Learn more about the National Center for Institutional Diversity.