Proposals Sought for Grand Challenges Grants 2.0

Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice and Vice President and Chief Research Officer Patrick O’Shea sent the following email to faculty and staff members on Tuesday:

As part of our efforts to further strengthen the resilience of our research enterprise, we are excited to continue the Grand Challenges Grants program with a new, second round of awards. 

This unique program has proven to be an incredibly worthwhile investment over the past three years. As a result of our first round of Grand Challenges Grants, we have nearly doubled the return on our initial investment, with more than $55 million secured in external funding. These awards have led to unique experiential learning and research opportunities for more than 6,500 students, engaged a broad range of over 450 partners, and made a significant impact in our communities locally, nationally, and around the world. Additionally, the multidisciplinary approach across colleges has provided excellent research and impactful results and highlighted the achievements of collaboration. 

We are now inviting new proposals from faculty for Grand Challenges Grants 2.0 to forge creative initiatives to address some of the most pressing and vexing societal challenges of our time. 

Two tracks are available to apply for grant support:

• Institutional Awards (up to three awards, each project will be eligible to receive $1.5 million total over three years)
• Team Awards (up to seven awards, each project will be eligible to receive $600,000 total over three years)

Today, we are releasing the Requests for Proposal (RFPs) for both the Institutional Awards and the Team Awards, and we invite applications that provide compelling, transformative and forward-leaning approaches that will make meaningful advances to address humanity’s grand challenges. All projects require collaboration across multiple disciplines and must involve teams representing two or more colleges. Institutional award teams must represent three or more colleges.

More information about the Grand Challenges Grants 2.0 Program is available at research.umd.edu/gc/2. Details on resources such as virtual office hours and optional information sessions for interested participants who seek support will be posted on the Grand Challenges Grants Program website. Questions about the program and RFP can be directed to Grand Challenges Program Manager Katie Yaeger at kyaeger@umd.edu.  

We have been tremendously impressed and inspired by the bold ideas and solutions that resulted from the first round of Grand Challenges Grants and can’t wait to see how the proposals generated for version 2.0 continue to move our campus, state, nation and world fearlessly forward. 

Sincerely,