Provost Mini-Grant

Each academic year, the Provost’s Office provides up to $2,500 in startup funding to enable faculty to conduct necessary preliminarily investigation activities through the Provost Mini Grant program.

This program funds preliminary research activities, including refining ideas, creating plans and designs, testing new methodologies, collecting preliminary data, procuring supplies or equipment, seeking fellowships, supporting travel and promoting collaboration. Note that this grant is meant for new initiatives, not ongoing programs. Thus, repeat applicants must demonstrate why the current funding is for a new initiative or project phase. Also, funds cannot be used for faculty salary supplements.

Visit the Academic Affairs Procedural Calendar for deadlines, review the application information below, and submit your application via Watermark. Recommendations from chair and dean levels will be made via Watermark.

Final approval from the Provost will also be documented in Watermark and will accompany an email and letter sent from the Office of Faculty Affairs to the applicant.

Eligibility

All full-time faculty (tenured, tenure-track, lecturer/senior lecturer) are eligible to apply. The funding period (i.e. the period during which awarded funding must be spent) for fall semester awards is August 1-December 31 and January 1 – June 30 for spring awards.

Note: While Provost Mini Grants may be used to fund sabbatical leave funding requests, Provost Mini Grant funding is available to all faculty who meet the criteria above.

Criteria and Review Process

Proposals must be submitted via Watermark and subsequently approved in Watermark by the faculty member’s Chair and Dean. For a detailed guide on this Watermark process, see the Using Watermark for Provost Mini Grant Application and Submission guide.

Following submission and these approvals, the Application Review Committee evaluates the proposals according to the following criteria:

• The grant project under development aligns with the University, relevant College/School, department missions, and strategic plans.
• The application is written in such a way that readers and reviewers who are non-specialists in the field can understand the request.
• If the applicant has received this award in the past, they should include the post-award report as part of their current application.
• The application clearly describes the “start-up” activities that will take place, including a timeline, which will lead to a draft proposal narrative.
• The application includes a budget that specifies how the funds are to be used.
• All other components of the proposed budget are justified in the narrative.

Post-Award Report

• All faculty will submit a brief 1–2-page report describing the completed activities by the final day of their funding period (December 31 or June 30). This report will be uploaded to the “Provost Mini Grants” page in Watermark.

Application Deadlines

• For updated deadlines, visit the Academic Affairs Procedural Calendar.

Following review and approval at the chair and dean levels, Provost Mini Grant applications are reviewed by the Provost Mini Grant Committee, a group of faculty members from across the MSU Denver colleges and schools who convene once per semester to use the rubric below to evaluate applications and make recommendations to the Provost. These reviews are then used by the Provost to make final decisions on the PMG recipients for a given semester.