Dean's Innovation Grants 2027

WHO: Full-time Tisch faculty (Arts Professors, all ranks and Tenure/Tenure-Track, all ranks)

WHAT: Grants of $3,000 to $8,000 supporting innovation across Tisch practices

WHEN: Applications due Sunday, November 8th, by 11:59 PM ET

Overview:

The new Dean's Innovation Grant pilot program supports innovative faculty research and activity across arts practice and scholarship at Tisch. Funds will support faculty-led inquiry that pursues one or more of the following goals:

  • Advance human capacity through the evolution and development of new forms;
  • Develop inquiry that can be translated into successful external funding proposals; 
  • Propose, achieve and sustain new forms of connection between groups.


To accommodate that range, proposals are reviewed on two axes: Proposal Type and Proposal Focus.

Proposal Type:

Using the following proposal types as a sorting mechanism ensures that projects of similar scope are judged fairly against one another. The proposal types do not determine grant amounts. Your work may blur the boundaries of these descriptions, in which case you should choose the one which most closely reflects the current state of your research:

Production: Building, Staging, Fabricating, Filming, Assembling, Rehearsing, Testing

Scholarship: Drafting, Generating, Publishing, Archiving, Presenting, Interviewing.

Seed: Imagining, Experimenting, Incubating, Exploring, Asking, Prototyping 

 


Proposal Focus:

Proposals should align with one or more of the following priorities:

Innovation/Transformation

  • Challenging/Advancing practice and form. What conversation, debate, or critical discourse does your proposed activity enter, advance, or interrogate? Describe the potential impact of your proposed activity on the discursive, intellectual, or artistic vitality of the field/form.
  • Inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary collaboration. How do you plan to engage in such collaborations - and if you don’t, why not?
    • Inter-disciplinary: integrating disciplinary methods/approaches
    • Trans-disciplinary: bringing the expertise, practices and ways of thinking from one discipline into another to generate new forms of inquiry and creation
  • Challenges inherited rubrics for assessment. How will your proposed activity challenge conventional rubrics for assessment? 

Activation/Entrepreneurship

  • New ideas. What new ideas or products will your proposed activity launch into the world, and what need will they address? 
  • Building opportunities and teams. How will you recruit others to participate in your proposed activity? What new opportunities will result from your activities, and what are the pathways to those opportunities?
  • Assuming risk. What are the risks associated with your proposed activity? How will you manage, or mitigate those risks? 

Bridge-building/Community

  • New forms. How does your proposed activity achieve and sustain new forms of  connection between groups in or across communities?
  • Long-term outcomes. What are the projected long-term outcomes of your proposed activity? What remains after the funded activity ends? 
  • Shared/mutual responsibility. How does your proposed activity demonstrate shared/mutual responsibility between groups? In what ways do you plan to facilitate, nurture and support shared responsibility among participants?

 

Application Requirements:

  • Applicant information
  • Proposal Type (choose one): Production, Scholarship, or Seed
  • Brief summary of the proposal (100w max)
  • Answers to the following:
    • What is the research question(s) at the center of your inquiry? (50w max)
    • Submitted as an attachment (500w max or 2 dbl-spaced pages)
      • How will your proposed activities allow you to explore, test, or expand your research questions?
      • How do your proposed questions/activities align with one or more of the three priorities of the Dean's Innovation Grants (innovation/transformation, activation/entrepreneurship, or bridgebuilding/community)?
  • A detailed timeline of your proposed activities, including where and when the activity will take place and who will be involved or participating
  • A detailed budget document using this template
    Tab 1: detailed budget indicating how grant funds will be used
    Tab 2: budget justification with narrative details explaining each expense category 


Grant Details:

  • Awards between $3,000 and $8,000
  • Grants must be fully expended by August 1, 2027 with a report due in Fall 2027
  • All budget items must comply with NYU Business and Travel Policy
  • Budget Guidelines include a list of eligible/ineligible expenses
  • Must be Logged in to your NYU Google account to apply
Apply Here

Questions? Join Tisch Creative Research for an Information Session on Zoom (Wed, Oct 21, 2:00 PM) or in person at 721 Broadway, 12th Floor (Mon, Oct 26, 12:00 PM). RSVP here to attend.