Call for Applications: 2025 Anti-Racism Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellowship

January 18, 2025

The National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID) is home to the Anti-Racism Collaborative (ARC), a strategic space created to facilitate University of Michigan (U-M) community engagement around research and scholarship focused on racial inequality, racial justice, and anti-racist praxis.

The ARC supports a variety of activities to catalyze innovation in research and scholarship, as well as informed practice, public engagement, and action to advance anti-racist principles and organizing. The Collaborative was created to recognize, honor, spotlight, and elevate the work of our current research community related to racism and racial justice.

The 2025 Anti-Racism Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellowship will provide instrumental support to early career faculty to advance their anti-racism scholarship in ways that can lead to successful tenure/promotion and support their efforts to utilize their expertise to fight systemic racism through policy advocacy, practice, teaching, and/or community partnerships. While our interest in power relationships that perpetuate white supremacy is foundational to the call, we welcome projects grounded in broad perspectives on anti-racism prior to and in parallel with the concept’s current popularity.

We are seeking applications from early career faculty (defined as pre-tenure or, for those not in tenure track appointments, within 8 years of receiving their PhD) for projects that do not easily meet the criteria of traditional funding sources for research and scholarship but are critical to supporting a scholar’s work in the academy as well as in dismantling systemic racism. Projects should align with the vision, mission, and priorities of the NCID’s Anti-Racism Collaborative.

We recognize anti-racism scholarship as consisting of knowledge production and scholarly inquiry and requiring community and public engagement in ways that may challenge and operate beyond the parameters of tradition.

Such work may include (but is not limited to):

Research designs that include plans for community outreach and/or community receipt of scholarship
Scholarship intended for public audiences
Using academic expertise to develop tools that impact policy or enhance community capacity and resources to fight systemic racism.

Fellowship Terms

The fellowship will provide early career faculty with one summer ninth salary, up to $7,500 in project funds (to be expended per policies and procedures for your respective school/college, department, and U-M), and $5,000 for student research assistants.
Funds may be used for a new project or to support an ongoing project.
We will fund up to 5-6 projects starting Spring 2025 for a one-year grant period.
Fellows will be invited to participate in NCID/ARC activities to amplify their work and support their professional development.
At the end of the grant period, fellows will submit a final report summarizing progress and outcomes related to their proposed project narrative and how funds were used. We request acknowledgement of the sponsorship of NCID’s Anti-Racism Collaborative on any publication(s) and/or deliverables resulting from the funded project.

Application & Process

Successful project narratives will address the following (using no more than five single-spaced pages, excluding references, tables or figures, or attachments):

The proposed scope of work (project) that this funding will support, project objectives, deliverables, one-year timeline, and budget.
Address how this project fits into your program of scholarship and broader anti-racism work.
Projected impact of this project, including how this project aligns with the ARC’s vision, mission, and priorities.
Other funding sources you have attempted to attain or the limitations of currently existing sources of funding in your field for this work. Please include any other sources of summer salary for the PI.

Please also include an updated CV.

Applications will be accepted via InfoReady and are due by Friday, March 21, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. We anticipate announcing decisions by the end of April 2025, with funds to be disbursed to departmental shortcodes in May 2025.

Submit Application

Administration of Funds

Funds will be transferred to a specified project grant within the fellow’s home department. The recipient is responsible for coordinating with NCID staff and their home department to arrange for good stewardship of the funds. Recipients must adhere to any applicable policy and procedures established by their school/college, department, and the University. All activities must be done in accordance with any COVID-related spending restrictions at the time of the project.

Reporting Guidelines

Applicants who receive funding must submit a two-page final report within 30 days of the end of the funding period (a report template will be provided), and any grant funds that are unused by the end of the grant period must be returned to NCID within 90 days to allow time for financial reconciliation processes to be completed. Any changes in budget items or project period must first be approved by the NCID.

We welcome discussions with interested early career faculty about the goals of this fellowship and potential project ideas. Please email Alford Young, Jr., ARC faculty director, at [email protected].