WashU is making a significant investment in faculty scholarship through two new funding initiatives. These initiatives encourage faculty to pursue innovative ideas, expand existing scholarship, and collaborate within and across disciplinary boundaries.
Academic Inquiry Research Fund
The Academic Inquiry Research Fund supports eight rigorous research studies at up to $200,000 over the next three years designed to strengthen the understanding of factors that shape academic inquiry across disciplines and professional fields. Scholars are inspired by curiosity, gaps in knowledge, or novel ideas, yet this scholarship does not occur in isolation. This fund is an opportunity to explore the ways in which scholars develop and pursue ideas for academic inquiry and how factors within and outside the university may influence their work, encourage intellectual risk-taking, or contribute to avoidance of research questions. Proposals may focus on a particular field or mechanism but should consider its implications in a broad academic context. Comparative studies across disciplines, professional fields, institutions, funding environments, or types of influence are particularly encouraged.
Letter of Intent Due December 4, 2026; Full Proposal Due January 29, 2027
More details and application instructions
Provost’s Humanities Collaborative Fund
The Humanities Collaborative Fund is designed to support humanities and humanistic social sciences scholarship by investing in faculty collaborations. The Provost’s Humanities Collaborative Fund will support the development of up to eight Collaborative Project Teams (at $50,000 each) over the next two years with the goal of creating new intellectual partnerships. For purposes of this funding opportunity, the humanities and humanistic social sciences include disciplines and areas of scholarship that examine human culture, history, values, ideas, institutions, and experiences. This includes traditional humanities disciplines, humanistic approaches within the social sciences, and humanities-oriented scholarship in other professional fields. Projects may encompass a broad range of topics, approaches, and activities, and applicants are encouraged to think creatively about opportunities to explore, demonstrate, or advance the contributions of the humanities.
Proposal Due January 29, 2027