Research Funding
Graduate Small project Help (GuSH) Research Funding
GuSH Research Funding is provided by the Graduate Student Assembly and the Provost's Office, and is managed by the Office of the Assistant Vice Provost for Graduate Education. GuSH funding is intended to help graduate students reach their full potential through the graduate work they do at Carnegie Mellon. These awards, for $750 each, are to be used against costs incurred in the completion of research required for a graduate degree at Carnegie Mellon. These funds are intended to be utilized by students whose personal or departmental resources have been exhausted.
GuSH Application Periods:
Fall 2011
Application opens on August 29 and closes on Sept 19
Spring 2012
Application opens on January 11 and closes on January 27
Summer 2012
Application opens on May 9 and closes on May 25
To learn more about GuSH donors, graduate student award recipients, and the amazing projects that are enabled through their collaboration, click here.
ELIGIBILITY:
- The project, research, or product in question must be at least a portion of a graduate degree requirement.
- The work in question must be scheduled for start-up within one semester of application for the award.
- Upon application, clear documentation of any and all costs and how they relate to the project are required, including a projected budget. All funding sources should be reflected. Allocations of GUSH funds should be specified. Click here to view items that are eligible for funding.
- Need for university support due to a lack of sufficient department or grant funds must be demonstrated and confirmed by faculty advisor(s). Information about your financial need will be captured on the advisor support form that you will send to your advisor via email (see application form and instructions below).
EVALUATION CRITERIA:
- Clarity: First, indicate (very briefly) the degree requirement being satisfied, then describe in detail the project to be funded. Both the abstract and proposal sections must be written in clear, non-specialized, generalist language. It must be original, not quoted from a graduate student handbook or course syllabus. It is best to be specific about the substance of your (hypo)thesis and its relation to existing literature on your topic.
- Structure: there must be a well-developed plan for structuring your work and the costs associated with it.
- Focused process/outcome: there must be a clear and focused work process in mind. Costs do not have to be clearly linked to the final product/outcome, but they must be part of a process clearly leading to that final product/outcome.
- Relevance of project to field/discipline: How was your research problem selected? What are the major questions and terms in your field related to your project and what are you doing in response to them? How is the project goal important? How can it contribute to advancing knowledge or the state of the art in your area of study?
- Demonstrated financial need. You should directly address this criterion in your budget justification and your advisor should also explain the situation in his or her letter of support (see requirements for advisor letter at bottom of application form).
For general advice on writing successful funding proposals, click here.
For more information on how to write successful GuSH proposals, click here.
SELECTION PROCESS:
- GuSH: applications will be ranked by an interdisciplinary faculty selection committee according to how well they meet the above criteria. Turnaround on GuSH applications typically take 2+ weeks.
PLEASE MAKE NOTE:
All graduate students who accept GuSH research funding support from the Graduate Student Assembly and the Provost's Office commit to presenting a poster, paper, powerpoint, or other appropriate format of their work at the annual Innovation with Impact Research Exhibition during Graduate Student Appreciation Week. Next year, the exhibition is scheduled for Thursday, April 5, 2012.