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The University of Texas at Austin

COLA Investment Fund

College of Liberal Arts

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Funding for faculty research expenses in the humanities and social sciences

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The College of Liberal Arts (COLA) administers the COLA Investment Fund (CIF) to support COLA faculty members engaged in scholarship in the broad areas of the humanities and the social sciences. This funding is intended to help faculty cover lower-level expenses that arise over the course of a project. The goal is to support COLA faculty start or complete projects with unanticipated or unbudgeted but necessary expenses.

  • About the Award
    • Up to $3,000
    • Applications are accepted throughout the year 
    • The following considerations may be used to prioritize applications: 
      • Use of the award to supplement past or current external funding or as a foundation for future proposals for external funding
      • Collaborative and especially interdisciplinary projects
      • Projects involving graduate or undergraduate students in the scholarship
  • Applicant Eligibility
    • Tenured and tenure-track faculty with primary appointments in COLA
    • Professional-track faculty with primary appointments in COLA 
    • Receipt of funding is limited to once per academic year and no more than three times in any five-year period
    • Faculty with endowed chairs or professorships or who have other discretionary research funds are not eligible to apply
    • Faculty cannot apply for expenses on projects that have received funding from other internal funding initiatives from COLA or UT
  • Examples of Eligible Expenses
    • Licensing fees
    • Archive and field travel
    • Graduate and undergraduate student support
    • Project-related equipment
    • Book indexing
    • Research participant stipends
  • Examples of Ineligible Expenses
    • Researcher’s salary or fringe benefits 
    • Any costs related to dissemination of the completed research 
    • General-purpose computer equipment or software
    • Travel or registration costs for professional conferences, meetings, or symposia 
    • Professional membership fees 
    • Entertainment expenses 
    • Office supplies unless specifically required for the proposed project
  • Other Considerations 
    • Funds will typically be distributed as a reimbursement by the faculty member’s departmental staff 
    • Awardees will be responsible for documenting to COLA the distribution of the funds and reporting on promised outcomes by the end of the project period 
    • Receipt of funding comes with the agreement that COLA may feature awardee’s projects on their websites and/or in communications about institutional investments in humanities and social science scholarship 

Questions? Contact the COLA Research Support Office at laresearch@austin.utexas.edu.