2024-2025 Resident Fellow Request for Proposals

Deadline: January 31, 2024

Download the RFP

SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

The CSU School of Global Environmental Sustainability (SoGES) is dedicated to developing, documenting, and sharing the knowledge needed to address global sustainability. Our Resident Fellow program allows CSU faculty time and bandwidth to accelerate creative approaches and ideas for addressing complex sustainability problems and enable initial steps toward lasting solutions. It also provides a mechanism for deeper involvement in SoGES programs and activities.

SoGES was created to work across, within, and beyond colleges and disciplinary units to advance meaningful sustainability scholarship. The aim of the Resident Fellow program is to provide time and funds to faculty so that they may spend focused effort on novel sustainability scholarship, or new and creative approaches to existing work.

We seek proposals from faculty and researchers from diverse perspectives, career stages, and approaches at CSU. Applicants from a broad range of disciplines, from any academic unit on campus, are encouraged to apply. Interdisciplinary research and scholarship is encouraged.

Successful Proposals Will:

  • Clearly address sustainability, considering social, economic, and environmental aspects.
  • Be new research, new approaches to existing research, synthesis, or other creative endeavor.
  • Demonstrate how proposed work will significantly enhance your contribution to sustainability scholarship; and would otherwise not be possible with existing resources, research plan, or workload. It should be clearly evident how proposed work is distinct from existing or planned work.

Timeline and Award:

Resident Fellows will receive $10,000. The funding period is July 1, 2024 – May 31, 2025. Funds are anticipated to cover a course buyout so that the applicant may dedicate more time to their research project; however, funding may also be proposed for other costs (travel, student assistants, coordination of meetings, etc.).

Eligibility Requirements:

  • Applicants must hold an academic position in good standing, including an active role in research or teaching.
  • People who are not eligible to apply: SoGES Executive Council members, students, postdocs, SoGES staff.

Expectations of Resident Fellows:

SoGES will provide a significant level of support to Resident Fellows, including but not limited to: meeting and event planning, online presence, assistance with budgets, use of conference and meeting space, communications materials and support. SoGES expects Resident Fellows to be actively engaged with SoGES during their funding cycle.

Resident Fellows are required to: 1) submit a brief mid-year survey, 2) submit a longer end of year report, 3) present their Fellowship work through an event, organized by SoGES, in a format that is relevant to their work and audience – this could be a lecture, reading, display, exhibit, symposium, or other event that would  most appropriately showcase their Resident Fellowship. Fellows are also encouraged to write a blog post for the SoGES blog.

To Apply:

Application deadline: January 31, 2024. Submit a 2-page proposal (page limit does not include your CV). Include the following:

  1. Short description. Summarize proposed work in a few sentences, written in third person, and in languagethat any technical or non-technical audience would understand and any organization would want to fund. Short description will be used on SoGES website and in external communications for funded proposals.
  2. Problem statement. Describe the sustainability challenge(s) to be addressed and how the proposed work contributes to sustainability scholarship.
  3. Tell us how it’s novel. Explain how the research question and/or approach is different than what has been done before, or is a new approach to an existing body of work. Include how proposed work is uniquely poised to answer an important sustainability challenge. Explain how a Resident Fellowship will help you pursue a research question or approach that you would otherwise be unable to accomplish and articulate how proposed work is distinct from existing and planned work.
  4. Plan of work and expected outcomes. Provide a timeline, planned milestones, expected outcomes, and metrics of success.
  5. Supporting activities. Include in your proposal how you plan to interact with the SoGES community during your Fellowship, and your plan to showcase the outcome of your work.
  6. Budget. Provide a budget for how funds will be spent. If proposing a course buyout and $10,000 is more than needed, include how the remainder of funds will be spent.
  7. CV

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

Yes; but be sure to articulate in your proposal how SoGES funding support will add significant value beyond what will already be done.

Proposals are ranked and reviewed by a cross-disciplinary panel of CSU faculty, researchers, and SoGES staff.

Unfortunately, no. Resident Fellows must be CSU faculty or research scientists.

No. Applying for both 2024-25 Resident Fellow and 2024-26 GCRT programs is discouraged and will decrease your chances for both proposals.

Yes, by design! Resident Fellowships are open to faculty and researchers from all departments and disciplines at CSU. We seek applications from anyone at the University who meets the eligibility criteria. In your proposal, tell us how funding support could most meaningfully increase your ability to advance your sustainability scholarship. Our goal is to propel faculty’s contributions to sustainability; we rely on you to tell us how to most effectively do that for you and your field.

SoGES will provide in-kind support for meeting facilities, online presence, event planning and logistics, potential workspace, development of communications materials, and other support as appropriate.

Absolutely, with notification and acceptance by the relevant department official.

Absolutely. Our goal is to help you focus on interesting sustainability scholarship. Be sure to articulate in your budget plan how funds would help you do work that you would otherwise be unable to do.

Yes and no. 9-month faculty can include some summer salary in the proposed budget. However, funds cannot be used to increase an individual’s salary.

No. Funds for each year must be spent in full by May 31, 2025, unless using for summer salary in the month of  June 2025 and pre-negotiated with SoGES. There is no carry forward beyond June 30, 2025.

There are numerous ways that Resident Fellows can engage with SoGES during their funding year including participating on panels, representing SoGES with invited guests, providing input on programmatic decisions, and developing externally facing content.

Generally, no. Resident Fellows usually spend directly out of the account housed at SoGES. We will work with your department directly to for course buyout logistics.

No. You can propose a new book project, but you cannot submit a proposal for work in progress that will be accomplished with or without the support of a Resident Fellowship. If some of the proposed work will contribute to a book in progress, be sure to articulate how funds will be providing research support in a space that otherwise will not be done.

Yes, but include a pathway toward applicability.

For more information and questions, contact Laura Shaver: laura.shaver@colostate.edu, 970-491-7583