Carolina Catalyst Fund

The most important science and scholarship rarely arrives fully formed. Often these ideas are deemed too risky or half-baked for a funding agency, but are too consequential to leave unsupported. The Carolina Catalyst Fund exists exactly for that moment.

The federal research funding is uncertain and evolving. The landscape our faculty are navigating is more complex than it has been in more than a generation. The Carolina Catalyst Fund is a joint investment from the OVCR and the Provost’s Office in response to this pressure. By re-envisioning and restructuring the Creativity Hubs mechanism, the Catalyst Fund backs the early, high-risk, high-reward research and scholarship that Carolina’s strategic priorities demand. The joint investment is intentional; it is a signal from the university’s highest academic leadership that these are the ideas that Carolina is betting on.

This year’s program gives advantage to research that deploys AI, machine learning, or large-scale data infrastructure, or that brings engineering design and translational thinking to bear on a scientific or scholarly challenge, in any discipline, at any tier. These are the cross-cutting capabilities that accelerate what every field can ask, answer, and deliver, but they are not requirements. In addition to AI and engineering, special consideration will also be given to projects that align with one of Carolina’s strategic research priority areas: preventing and curing disease; environment, energy, and planetary resilience; mind, brain, and human experience; and society, democracy, and the public good.

Find out more about the Carolina Catalyst Fund and apply here.

Past Programs

UNC Idea Seed Grant

Not currently accepting proposals.

The UNC Idea Seed Grant is a pilot funding program that encourages researchers to develop novel ideas that address important problems or roadblocks to a current line of inquiry. This competition is open to any field of research and/or scholarship conducted by UNC-CH researchers. Proposers must demonstrate how their proposed research project will have impact by addressing an important problem in their research field. The goal of this program is to provide initial support to projects so that researchers will be more competitive for additional external or large-scale internal funding. This funding program will not serve as bridge funding or to supplement existing funding.

Creativity Hubs

Not currently accepting proposals.

Creativity Hubs are evolving virtual research networks that concentrate talent and resources on bold ideas for defined periods of time. Launched by the Vice Chancellor for Research in Fall 2017, Creativity Hubs Creativity Hubs will create an environment where investigators can leverage advances to keep Carolina at the forefront of creativity and innovation.

Arts and Humanities Research Grants

The Arts and Humanities Research Grant is now administered by the Institute for the Arts and Humanities.

The Arts and Humanities Research Grant provides support to scholarly, creative, or artistic pursuits and research projects led by individuals or teams. The program is part of UNC-Chapel Hill’s strategic plan and the Vice Chancellor for Research’s University-wide pilot funding portfolio, furthering the University’s pre-eminence as a national and world-renowned leader in foundational research, creative practice, and the translation of research into social settings.