Tag: Research

2025 CISR Funding for Early Career and New Research Directions

The Center for Innovation in Sustainability and Resilience (CISR) is accepting applications for the Sustainable & Resilient Communities Early Career and New Research Directions Award.

These awards are designed to complement start-up packages for early-career faculty or to support established researchers who are pursuing new ideas or topics around sustainability and resilience themes. Funds are provided by the Tech Forward Initiative on Sustainability and Resilience. Award eligibility requires being an affiliate of CISR (open to anyone on campus) and contributing to the CISR research community through future external funding proposal submissions.

The application deadline is April 1, 2025, but rolling submissions and inquiries are encouraged.

Early Career and New Research Directions Award

In the range of $3,000 – $5,000, this award complements start-up packages for early career faculty or supports established researchers who are pursuing new ideas or topics around sustainability and resilience themes. We anticipate making four to six awards. View the Early Career and New Directions Award Request for Proposal

Proposal narratives, budgets, and budget justifications should be submitted as a single document via email to Chelsea Schelly, cschelly@mtu.edu. Potential submitters are encouraged to reach out with questions or to pitch ideas before developing a proposal. CISR looks forward to receiving your inquiries and applications!

Call for the Michigan Tech Sustainable and Resilient Communities Faculty Research Fellowship!

The Tech Forward Initiative on Sustainability and Resilience is accepting applications for Sustainable and Resilient Communities Faculty Research Fellows. Fellows will receive support to buy out one or more courses from their teaching responsibilities in the Spring 2022 or Fall 2022 semester. Fellows will be expected to 1) develop and submit proposals to external funding opportunities; 2) establish a relationship with an existing center and institute to build support for sustainability & resilience research on campus; and 3) participate in Sustainable and Resilient Communities Social network and Research Collaborative (SRC-squared) events during the 2021-2022 academic year. 

Potential applicants are required to complete a short Google Form to provide information about their potential projects. Based on this pre-proposal, applicants will be contacted (within two weeks of submitting the pre-proposal Form) and potentially encouraged to apply. The full application will require: 

  • List of funding opportunities (submission deadline, max budget, link to solicitation), one paragraph describing planned submission, list of (expected) team members with indication of confirmed collaborators and collaborators to be invited (not more than 1 page)
  • Brief explanation of how these projects, if funded, align with sustainability and resilience research and how this Fellowship opportunity would allow pursuit of new opportunities that otherwise would not be pursued (not more than 1 page) 
  • A letter of support from supervising Chair or Dean with budget requirement indicated

Particularly encouraged elements include transdisciplinary and convergent teams, a combination of teams experienced in collaboration and new collaborative teams, a combination of teams internal to Michigan Tech and teams including external collaborators, and a clear connection to growing the visibility of sustainability and resilience research at Michigan Tech. Applicants should consider as a general benchmark submitting a minimum of 3 funding proposals totaling a minimum of $2 million, although more proposals and larger funding amounts are encouraged as are creative pursuits of funding opportunities outside of this general benchmark. 
The Tech Forward Initiative on Sustainability and Resilience welcomes and encourages inquiries about this opportunity! Please contact Chelsea Schelly, cschelly@mtu.edu, with any questions.

Tech Forward Sustainability Listening Session

The Tech Forward Initiative on Sustainability and Resilience recently held a campus-wide listening session to hear from more voices across campus. The event was focused on small-group discussions about what Michigan Tech does well, and what can be done differently when it comes to research, education, and campus life issues related to sustainability. Roughly 70 people showed up for a two-hour event on a weeknight, which is a really great indication of just how many people feel strongly about this topic! The folks working within the Tech Forward group are still accepting feedback, so if you did not get a chance to attend the event, please go to this Google Form and share your thoughts about how research, education, or campus life could be improved in regards to sustainability issues – or, feel free to tell us what we are doing that is already going well!

The whole group sharing ideas near the end of the event