Who is eligible to apply for an Imagine Fund annual award or a Special Events grant?

All tenured/tenure-track arts, humanities, and design faculty across the University system are eligible. Also eligible are faculty whose research directions place them squarely within the arts and humanities or design.

Note that eligibility does not include: visiting faculty, students pursuing a Ph.D., non-salaried faculty appointment type W or employees with T appointments.

To ensure that Imagine funds reach broadly across all eligible faculty, we have a limit of no more than 3 awards in five consecutive years. The first academic year of this five year window is 2012-2013, awards in 2011-12 or earlier are not counted.

How may annual award funds be used?

The award may be used for research needs, books, supplies, or travel that are not otherwise supported by University of Minnesota or external funds. The award may not be used to supplement salary, nor may it be used for course buyouts. The awards must be spent within a three year period.

How are award decisions made?

A committee of arts and humanities faculty will review the applications. The commitee will adhere to the following conflict-of-interest guidelines:

No committee member shall participate in any phase of the discussion or decision making process for applications or proposals that they have submitted or for which they are co-investigators or would receive a direct financial benefit. In addition, a committee member may recuse themselves from discussion or decision making for any proposals or applications they believe represents a conflict of interest.

Can the annual award be banked?

Yes, but the award must be spent within 3 years.

Can faculty hold multiple awards (e.g. annual award and course release)?

Yes.

Are there restrictions on how the annual award may be used?

Yes. It may not be used as salary or used towards course release.