Data Science Research Team Grants

This program is intended to support impactful, multi-disciplinary research projects in Data Science. The primary goal of the program is to support teams of faculty and students from a variety of disciplines who are focused on an important topic in data science with the goal of publishable creative scholarship. A secondary goal is to facilitate and help prepare the teams to pursue outside funding to continue or expand the project. High quality proposals will be multi-disciplinary and outline clear deliverables whether they are applied, theoretical, or both, with strong intellectual merit and broad impacts.

The DS Research Team program has two tiers:

Tier 1 (Small):​ Small proposals will include teams of at least two faculty and at least three students. The duration of the project is up to 12 months with a budget less than $25,000. The expectation for a small proposal is the equivalent of a conference or short paper, with the budget including travel funding for the participants.

Tier 2 (Large):​ Large proposals will be for a duration of 15 months, including two summers, with a budget of up to $100,000. They should include teams of at least three faculty, at least six students, and support four research students each summer. Additional staff may also be partially supported. Ideally, a large proposal will support activities that lead to multiple deliverables, such as peer-reviewed publications or scholarly work, presentations, or external grant proposals.

Budgets for both tiers may include requests for faculty summer salary, summer research students, academic year research assistants, travel to conferences, equipment, data resources, or other expenses related to the project. If one of the participating faculty is on a full year sabbatical, funding may be used to cover part of the the 20% salary gap.

Small Proposal Format:

Applicants should submit a proposal to ​[email protected]​ as a single PDF that includes the following items.

  1. A cover page that includes the project title, the names and departments of all participants and their roles in the proposed work (e.g. PI, co-PI, researcher, support), and the total requested grant amount.
  2. A 1-page project summary that describes the proposed activity and highlights its intellectual merit and broader impacts. The summary must clearly state how the project falls within the scope of Data Science activities.
  3. A project description (maximum 4 pages) that gives a high-level description of the proposed work, including the following items:
    1. A clear statement of the project’s purpose, goals, and scope.
    2. The relation of the project to the current state of the art.
    3. The data to be collected and analyzed in order to address the problem.
    4. The theory, algorithms, experimental methods, or procedures to be used.
    5. The project deliverable, ideally some type of publication/presentation.
    6. The broader impacts of the project if it is successful.
    7. A bibliography.
    8. An itemized budget and justification.
    9. A data management plan.

Large Proposal Format:

Applicants should submit a proposal to ​[email protected]​ as a single PDF that includes the following items:

  1. A cover page that includes the project title, the names and departments of all participants and their roles in the proposed work (e.g. PI, co-PI, researcher, support), and the total requested grant amount.
  2. A 1-page project summary that describes the proposed activity and highlights its intellectual merit and broader impacts. The summary must clearly state how the project falls within the scope of Data Science activities.
  3. A project description (maximum 10 pages) that gives a detailed description of the proposed work, including the following items:
    1. A clear statement of the project’s purpose, goals, and scope.
    2. The relation of the project to the current state of the art.
    3. The data to be collected and analyzed in order to address the problem.
    4. The theory, algorithms, experimental methods, or procedures to be used.
    5. The project deliverable, ideally some type of publication/presentation.
    6. The broader impacts of the project if it is successful.
    7. A bibliography.
    8. A 1-page biography for each participant
    9. An itemized budget and justification.
    10. A data management plan.

Criteria for Awards:

Awards will be judged based on their relevance to Data Science, their intellectual merit, their expected broader impacts, and the proposed deliverables (e.g. publications, presentations, or external grant proposals). DS Research Teams are expected to be high visibility projects that highlight the importance of multi-disciplinary teams in Data Science Research.

Proposals will be evaluated by a review panel consisting of at least three faculty, the Data Science Program Director, and the Data Science Coordinator. The program can support only one proposal per year that requests the full possible amount.

Deadlines:

The primary review deadline for the Data Science Research Team Grants (small and large) will be January 15, 2020, with annual deadlines on the same date thereafter. Funding decisions for proposals submitted then will be made by February 15.

Proposals submitted at other times will be accepted and evaluated, with funding subject to availability.

Reporting and Distribution of Funds:

The reporting requirements for a DS Research Team Grant are as follows:

  1. A summary report is due at the end of the first three months describing the work
    undertaken by the team, including any results. The report should also include a brief description of any summer student project with the title, the student’s name, and their supervising faculty member clearly stated.
  2. Summer research students are expected to attend and present at the Colby Undergraduate Summer Research Retreat. Students are also encouraged to present at the Colby Liberal Arts Symposium [CLAS].
  3. A final report is due at the end of the grant period describing the work completed.. This should include a clear description of the project’s impacts, data created, other deliverables, papers (in progress, submitted, or published), or external grant proposals (in progress, submitted, or funded) based on the work. The report should also include a brief description of each summer student’s project with the title, the student’s name, and their supervising faculty member clearly stated. The student summaries in the final report should include the projects for all students who participated in the project.

A fund will be set up for the DS Research Team Grant similar to external grants received to which the team can charge expenditures. Teams are responsible for adhering to the proposed budget and may not overspend the total amount of the grant. Teams must obtain permission from the Data Science Program Director before making significant changes to the budget allocations.

Questions should be directed to Professor Liam O’Brien: [email protected].