Graduate Incentives for Growth Awards (GIGA)
Program Description for 2009-2010 start date
The Graduate College is pleased to announce the availability of funding for the third year of the Graduate Incentives for Growth Awards (GIGA) program. GIGA support is intended as direct funding support for graduate students (international and/or domestic), targeted in the form of seed grants to graduate programs and other relevant units or faculty groups. The GIGA program is intended to advance the University's plan to increase funding and enrollments of graduate students by providing 'venture funds' to attract long-term extramural financial support. It provides graduate student support for one or two years, to (a) bring in more graduate students and (b) bring in more graduate student funding, thereby multiplying the future effects of the award.
GIGA promotes enterprising and investment-oriented uses of an award to attract additional extramural graduate student financial support that will continue beyond the seed funding period. GIGA funds will be available for short-term seed funding, up to two years per award. Due to the nature of the available funds, an award can be used only for graduate student support (i.e., assistantships, fellowships, etc.). Salaries, operations or other expenses, if needed, must be provided by another source. The intended outcome is to multiply the total number and quality of supported graduate students at the UA beyond current base numbers and base support.
Creative and innovative proposals for ways to grow graduate support and enrollment are encouraged. For example, a proposal might outline how GIGA funding will be part of an extramural funding strategy to create the desired multiplier effect. Some proposals might request moderate support for just a few graduate students, while others might be more ambitious if there are reasonable possibilities of attracting higher levels of extramural support beyond the duration of an award. Some proposals might request fellowships, while others might propose assistantships to achieve a number of ends including teaching, research or outreach. GIGA funding is not intended to provide conventional agency funding matches but to attract additional extramural sources which might include, but are not limited to, foundations, the private sector, or individual/corporate donors. A GIGA award might also be used to support students in program development or grant-writing that ultimately leads to lasting support for graduate students in the proposed program.
Here are some examples of funded GIGA awards, but proposals should not be limited to these ideas alone. Please 'think outside the box.' Last year, a GIGA award to Music seeded the establishment of a prestigious graduate quintet to be used for graduate recruiting. GIGA support is being used to attract donors to support the quintet into the future. A GIGA award to the Professional Science Master's program was used to attract industry sponsorship for summer student support. In contrast, GIGA did not support proposals for simply adding TA capacity for a year or two without a concrete plan for ongoing extramural support, and neither did GIGA support proposals for 'personal RAs' enabling one or two individual professors to write more research grants. The key goal is to grow extramural graduate funding (and thereby graduate enrollment) using GIGA as a seed investment to attract that funding. Therefore, GIGA proposals should focus on the financial strategy to achieve long-term extramural support.
The GIGA program is an annual, competitive program, with proposals evaluated by a faculty and student awards committee. Continuing awards will be evaluated for second year renewal based on a progress report. Proposals contain a one-page budget summary and an open format for the text (2 pages maximum; avoid type so small that it will annoy the review committee). An award pool of ~$300,000 is anticipated for the current round.
Eligible to Apply: Faculty or Administrators within any University of Arizona graduate program, academic unit, or center
Application:
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Cover and Budget Page: contact information, amount requested and budget detail
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Proposal Text: an explanation of how GIGA funds will lead to a long-term net increase in graduate funding (up to 2 pages). Only a brief summary of the disciplinary or thematic area is needed with a focus on the 'business plan' for the award.
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Submit as electronic attachment (either as PDF or Word doc) to Dorian Voorhees, Assistant Dean, voorhees@grad.arizona.edu by deadline.
Deadline: February 9, 2009, 5:00 pm
Questions? Contact Dorian at 520-621-3471 or voorhees@grad.arizona.edu