The Emerging Media Initiative will spend up to $100,000 on faculty research projects this semester with the second round of the Emerging Media Innovation Grant competition.
Faculty from any department are invited to pitch ideas for research projects to receive one of up to 10 $10,000 grants.
Erin Moore, special projects manager for EMI, said the goal of the initiative and the grant competition is to encourage and expand emerging media research in programs throughout campus. EMI also is interested in advancing and commercializing ideas with potential to launch new businesses.
These grants aren't meant to fund the entire project but will allow them to do preliminary research for a project in order to apply for significant external funding or create a proof of concept, she said. A proof of concept is like a demo. If the research project was for a software suite, the proof of concept would be a small piece of the program, she said. Funding will be available July 1.
'We were really pleased with the variety of proposals we received last year,' she said. 'They were all across campus and were pretty unique concepts so we're hoping for similar concepts this year.'
The proposals will be reviewed by a subcommittee of the Emerging Media Research Council, Moore said.
One of the positive 'side effects' of last year's grant cycle was that it gave EMI an idea of what kind of emerging media activity was happening across campus, Moore said. It allowed EMI to form relationships with various departments on campus that it otherwise may not have had.
She said these grants give people the money to advance their projects or move on to larger projects which puts Ball State's name in larger grant competitions and establishes its credibility as a leader in new media. It also helps any department to be involved with researching emerging media.
The grant has created a community on campus, Moore said. EMI had a reception for the 2009 grants that allowed different faculty who normally wouldn't meet to discuss their research and make connections.
'We hope these grants allow people to bring their creative ideas to life and share them with rest of university and the outside world,' Moore said.
Proposals are due by March 1. The council will invite a select few to submit full proposals later that month.
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