Through Intellectual Community Planning Grants, the Office of the Provost provides support to Duke faculty who are interested in convening a group of colleagues to begin or test a new collaboration around a shared intellectual interest.
Project funds ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 are awarded for use during the calendar year. Recipients can use funds to cover the cost of meeting venues, external speakers, event materials, books or other meeting costs, and/or exploratory research (as by a student research assistant) into potential collaborators at Duke, UNC, NC State, NCCU, RTI, or organizations in Durham or the Triangle. Expenses for meetings, travel and in-person events are contingent upon university guidelines. Recipients from grant cycles in previous years represent a broad range of groups and new projects.
Any Duke regular rank faculty member, from any discipline, is eligible to propose and form a new collaborative group. Prospective collaborations may be framed around disciplinary, interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary themes.
The review process of submitted proposals will be overseen by the vice provost for interdisciplinary studies and the executive vice provost. All proposals, and discussions thereof, will be kept strictly confidential. The intent is that the collective set of award recipients will reflect the richness of intellectual approaches and modes of inquiry that make Duke a vibrant university.
Historical note: Intellectual Community Planning Grants were not offered in 2021. Two cycles were run in the 2015-2016 academic year; later cycles were based on the calendar year.