Research Funding
Graduate Small project Help (GuSH) Research Funding
GSA/Provost Office GuSH Grants:
GuSH Research Funding provides small grants of $750 to graduate students for forwarding their research at Carnegie Mellon University. Grants are provided by the Graduate Student Assembly and the Provost's Office, and are managed by the Office of the Assistant Vice Provost for Graduate Education. GuSH funding is intended 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. A graduate student is eligible for funding one time in each fiscal year (July 1 to June 30) they are a graduate student.
2012 Phi Kappa Phi Research Grant
In 2012-2013 Phi Kappa Phi is sponsoring a $750 PKP Graduate Student Research Grant Award for a PKP graduate student member. Phi Kappa Phi is the oldest and largest honor society representing all academic disciplines. The chapter at Carnegie Mellon University has 20 graduate students and 30 undergraduate student members. Student applications will be managed through the GSA/Provost GuSH Funding process outlined below.
GuSH Application Periods:
Fall 2012
Application opens on August 29 and closes on Sept 14
Spring 2013
Application opens on January 16 and closes on January 31
Summer 2013
Application opens on May 8 and closes on May 22
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 detailed projected budget. All funding sources should be identified. Allocations of GUSH funds should be specified. See below for 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) on the advisor support form that you will send to your advisor via email (see application form and instructions below).
ITEMS ELIGIBLE FOR FUNDING
- Books
- Travel to archives/labs/clients/research subjects, but not to conferences. Travel includes transportation and lodging but not meal costs.
- Software and Datasets
- Lab equipment
- Art supplies
- Human subjects - fees/incentives
- Programmer fees (in multi-disciplinary projects)
- Equipment (but if capital equipment, must donate to graduate program when finished) (1)
- No stipend, no tuition - for GuSH (2)
(1) Equipment: Before requesting equipment make sure that your department does not have the equipment available. If they do but usage fees are required the grant can support usage fees. If they don’t then you can include purchase costs in the grant. Equipment that is purchased must be donated to the graduate program and in the final report the student must indicate which faculty/staff member or laboratory will manage the equipment.
(2)Stipend/Tuition: The intent is to fund research, not a student's "quality of life." We realize that graduate students make sacrifices when it comes to salary for the sake of their research, and that is why we have the possibility for offsetting "minimal stipend" such as lodging where travel is involved.
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 as members of the review committee represent departments across the campus. 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 linked to 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 by showing all associated costs and where funding is being provided or the sources it is being sought from.
- Support letter: Your advisor’s support letter is required for the proposal to be considered by the review committee. It should address the merits of the research work you are doing, how the proposal fits into the departmental requirements and should also provide background information on the need for GuSH funding indicating why this funding is not available to you from other resources.
SELECTION PROCESS:
- GuSH applications will be ranked by an interdisciplinary faculty and graduate student selection committee according to how well they meet the above criteria. Turnaround on GuSH applications typically takes 2+ weeks.
REQUIREMENT FOR SELECTED GRANTS:
All graduate students who accept GuSH research funding 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. In 2014, the exhibition is scheduled for Thursday, April 3, 2014.
For more information, please see:
For more information on how to write successful GuSH proposals, click here.
For general advice on writing successful funding proposals, click here.
For further information on GradUate Small project Help (GUSH) please contact:
Suzie Laurich-McIntyre, Ph.D.
Assistant Vice Provost for Graduate Education
grad-ed@cmu.edu
(412)268-7307
Warner Hall 533
5000 Forbes Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
For PKP applicants:
If you are a member of Phi Kappa Phi, please add the initials 'PKP' on the application form following the name of your program in the Graduate Program field.