GuSH/Ford Quarterly Deadlines
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
GuSH funding is financed by the Graduate Student Assembly, in collaboration with the Graduate Support Programs Office and the Provost's Office. GuSH funding is intended to help graduate students reach their full potential through the graduate work they do at CMU. These awards, for $500 each, are to be used against costs incurred in the completion of research required for a graduate degree at Carnegie Mellon. These funds are intended to be utilized by students whose personal or departmental resources have been exhausted. GuSH awards allow students to continue or complete projects toward their degree. Graduate students may not receive more than one GuSH award per fiscal year--that is, only one award between July 1 to June 30 of any given year. Approximately 30 awards will be given out each academic year. Eligibility and evaluation criteria are outlined below.
Applications for Ford Motor Company research grants are submitted through the GuSH on-line application form, however, the guidelines and awards are different. For Ford Motor Company grants, research must be related to automotive or environmental issues. Research may focus on traditional fields of study (engineering, sciences, economics, etc.) or may be interdisciplinary (Engineering and Public Policy, Heinz, Social and Decision Sciences, etc.). Funded research may be a part of a larger research project in an existing lab or may be a product of independent research. Grants are awarded competitively based on proposals submitted by students. Requests for funding will be considered for a total of $500-$1,000. A maximum of $1,000 will be awarded per quarter. Participants in a project that receives funding are required to make a presentation and supply a final report to Ford Motor Company's Carnegie Mellon Campus Relations Team at the completion of the funded research. All presentations will be made on the Carnegie Mellon campus.
To learn more about GuSH/Ford donors, graduate student award recipients, and the amazing projects that are enabled through their collaboration, click here.
ELIGIBILITY:
- The project, research, or product in question must be at least a portion of a graduate degree requirement.
- The work in question must be scheduled for start-up within one semester of application for the award.
- Upon application, clear documentation of any and all costs and how they relate to the project are required, including a projected budget. All funding sources should be reflected. Allocations of GUSH and Ford funds should be specified. Click here to view items that are eligible for funding.
- Need for university or Ford support due to a lack of sufficient department or grant funds must be demonstrated and confirmed by faculty advisor(s). Information about your financial need will be captured on the advisor support form that you will send to your advisor via email (see application form and instructions below).
EVALUATION CRITERIA:
- Clarity: First, indicate (very briefly) the degree requirement being satisfied, then describe in detail the project to be funded. Both the abstract and proposal sections must be written in clear, non-specialized, generalist language. It must be original, not quoted from a graduate student handbook or course syllabus. It is best to be specific about the substance of your (hypo)thesis and its relation to existing literature on your topic.
- Structure: there must be a well-developed plan for structuring your work and the costs associated with it.
- Focused process/outcome: there must be a clear and focused work process in mind. Costs do not have to be clearly linked to the final product/outcome, but they must be part of a process clearly leading to that final product/outcome.
- Relevance of project to field/discipline: How was your research problem selected? What are the major questions and terms in your field related to your project and what are you doing in response to them? How is the project goal important? How can it contribute to advancing knowledge or the state of the art in your area of study?
- Demonstrated financial need. You should directly address this criterion in your budget justification and your advisor should also explain the situation in his or her letter of support (see requirements for advisor letter at bottom of application form).
For more information on how to write successful GuSH proposals, click here.
SELECTION PROCESS:
- For GuSH: applications will be ranked by an interdisciplinary faculty selection committee according to how well they meet the above criteria. Turnaround on GuSH applications typically take 2+ weeks.
- For Ford: the GPO will "pre-screen" applications to ensure relevance to automotive and environmental issues. Pre-screened applications are forwarded to Dearborn, MI where Ford's CMU Campus Relations Committee reviews them. Decisions on awards and funding are made within 1-2 weeks and returned to the Director of Graduate Support Programs.
The on-line application below is for both GuSH and Ford grants.