Collaboratory & Working Group Applications Due
- Application deadline: Friday, March 28, 11:59 PM
- Access complete application instructions here.
- Virtual information session: Friday, February 28, 9:00-10:00 AM | Register here.
About
C21 believes that the complex challenges we face in the 21st century are best met through collaborations across areas of expertise and experience, and that the humanities are a vital part of addressing these challenges.
Collaborative project funding provides an opportunity to bring together teams of scholars across disciplines, across university and community partnerships, and across emerging and established scholars (students / staff / faculty) to generate new ideas and knowledge.
C21 Collaboratories provide opportunities to bring new, humanities-informed ideas and knowledge to many different audiences both on and off campus. Collaboratories are also foundational to the Center’s annual programming.
Funding Tiers: Collaboratories and Working Groups
C21 offers two distinct funding tiers for collaborative research projects:
Collaboratories are collaborative projects developed with a specific project or public outcome in mind. These collaboratives are eligible for up to $10,000 in funding, though most projects receive around $5,000. Awarded funds can be used as seed funding to establish proof-of-concept or complete research legwork to find additional funding or sustainable support structures. Or, funds can support short-term research projects that include a specific public programming component or culminate in a public presentation of some form. Preference will be given to project proposals that 1) address the pressing issues of our time and correlate with C21’s annual theme of Slow Care1 for the granting period, 2) include team members with expertise in disciplines outside of the humanities, 3) experiment with new formats for presenting, conveying, or disseminating humanities research, 4) demonstrate potential for longevity beyond the grant period, and/or 5) engage the public in meaningful ways. All project proposals MUST include a public-facing component or other tangible final deliverable. Funded Collaboratories will be required to submit a brief final report at the end of the grant cycle.
Working Groups are groups that gather for ongoing discussions, networking, and idea generation. Theses groups are eligible for $500 in funding, and may be newly formed or pre-existing groups with an ongoing dialogic process or collaborative project. They do not necessarily have to have a fully formed project plan with a final deliverable in mind, nor must their proposed project cohere with C21’s annual theme. Working Group funding presents an opportunity to build momentum towards a Collaboratory project proposal or an externally funded project. For FY26, C21 will fund a maximum of three proposals from returning Working Groups (Working Groups that have received Collaboratory funding from C21 in the past) and two proposals from new Working Groups (groups that have never before received Collaboratory funding from C21).
Questions?
C21 strongly encourages questions and inquiries in advance of proposals. Please review application details in full and contact C21 Managing Director Katie Waddell with questions at waddelke@uwm.edu.
- C21’s theme for 2025-2026 is Slow Care. Across health, climate, labor, technology and more, we ask how pacing affects the institutions, policies, cultural infrastructures, and social and political processes that support or disassemble an ethic of care. We welcome multiple interpretations of this open topic, including explorations of time, pace, and speed as they relate to pressing issues of our time and/or work inside and outside the university. Methodological, pedagogical, and research topical interests are all welcome in relation to this theme. ↩︎