Colleagues,

In partnership with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research, the Office of Foundation Relations is pleased to issue this internal Call for Proposals for the Mellon New Directions Fellowship program. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has received an invitation to submit one nominee for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s New Directions Fellowships program. This program supports faculty in the humanities who would benefit from their acquiring systematic training outside their own discipline.

Limited Submission 

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation 
Fall 2015 New Directions Fellowship 
Internal Deadline: MONDAY, JULY 27 

Purpose:  Serious interdisciplinary research often requires established scholar-teachers to pursue formal substantive and methodological training in addition to the PhD.  New Directions Fellowships assist faculty members in the humanities -- broadly understood to include the arts, history, languages, area studies, and zones of such fields as anthropology and geography in which the practice and insights of scholarship in the humanities coexist integrally with those of the social sciences -- who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest.  The program is intended to enable strong scholars in the humanities to work on problems that interest them most, at an appropriately advanced level of sophistication.  In addition to facilitating the work of individual faculty members, these awards should benefit scholarship in the humanities more generally by encouraging the highest standards in cross-disciplinary research.

Terms of the Awards:  Candidates will be faculty members who were awarded doctorates within the last six to twelve years and whose research interests call for formal training in a discipline other than the one in which they are expert.  Such training may consist of coursework or other programs of organized study.  It may take place either at fellows’ home institutions or elsewhere, as appropriate.  Although it is anticipated that many fellows will seek to acquire deeper knowledge of other fields within the broadly defined sphere of the humanities evoked above, proposals to study disciplines farther afield are eligible.  The principal criteria for selection are: (1) the overall significance of the research, (2) the case for the importance of extra-disciplinary training for furthering the research, (3) the likely ability of the candidate to derive satisfactory results from the training program proposed; and (4) a well-developed plan for acquiring the necessary training within a reasonable period of time. 

Fellows will receive:  (1) the equivalent of one academic year’s salary; (2) two summers of additional support, each at the equivalent two-ninths of the previous academic year salary, and (3) tuition or course fees or equivalent direct costs associated with the fellows’ training programs.  To permit flexibility in meeting individual scholars’ needs, these funds may be expended over a period not to exceed three full academic years following the date of the award.  The Foundation also expects the fellow’s home institution to use such budgetary relief as the award may occasion for academic purposes, preferably in the fellow’s department.

Fellows are expected to cover their housing costs during the periods (one academic year and two summers) when they receive salary support from the grant.  Requests for housing supplements may be included in the proposed budget when the projected costs for living in a city where study is to be pursued exceed substantially the costs incurred when the fellow is working at the home institution.  No overhead or indirect costs are permitted, and no funding for staging conferences, symposia, seminars or events related to the project is allowed.  The Foundation assumes that needs for equipment or for research assistants will be met by the fellow’s home institution.  Final budgets commonly range from $175,000 to $250,000; the maximum is $300,000. 

For complete details about the award and eligibility, please follow this link:

Instructions for the Internal Selection Process

This is a limited submission opportunity; the university may nominate one candidate. For the internal selection process, we ask that interested applicants submit the following documents in a single PDF document (in the order outlined below):

• Proposal narrative no longer than five pages describing the overall plan for future research and a brief outline of the anticipated program of study the new work requires. This statement should include a description of the individual’s specific plans for acquiring the necessary training and should indicate how the proposed new direction will assist in the development of the field.
• A preliminary budget may also be included, but is not required.
• Updated curriculum vitae.
• Letter from the unit head(s) describing the importance of the candidate’s proposed research for her or his field.

The principal criteria for internal selection are the same as those outlined by Mellon: (1) the overall significance of the research, (2) the case for the importance of extra-disciplinary training for furthering the research, (3) the likely ability of the candidate to derive satisfactory results from the training program proposed; and (4) a well-developed plan for acquiring the necessary training within a reasonable period of time. 

Applications should be submitted to Janelle K. Weatherford in the Office of Foundation Relations, jwthford@illinois.edu, by 5:00 p.m., Monday, July 27, and will be reviewed by a faculty committee in early August. 

If you have any additional questions, please contact Janelle K. Weatherford at jwthford@illinois.edu or 217-244-6566.

Janelle Weatherford
Director, Foundation Relations
Office of the Vice Chancellor for
Institutional Advancement
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
507 East Green Street, Suite 426
Champaign, IL 61820
Tel: 217-244-6566
Web: http://vcia.illinois.edu/FoundationRelations/index.html