People sitting at a table with a microphone. People sitting at a table with a microphone. People sitting at a table with a microphone.

Funding Opportunities for UChicago Faculty

Open to all CSGS Faculty Affiliates, Affiliated Post Docs, and Fellows  

The CSGS provides funding to support all manner of research, events, and programming – from talks and conferences, to creative projects, exhibitions, film series, performances, research collaborations, reading or writing groups, and more. If you imagine it, we want to help make it happen! Collaborative projects and events – organized with other UChicago faculty, graduate or undergraduate students, colleagues from other local institutions, and community groups – are especially encouraged. 

We’re excited to announce that our inaugural Director for Research and Programming for AY 26-27 is Kaneesha Parsard. Please feel free to reach out to her with programmatic or research-related questions (kparsard@uchicago.edu), and to our Associate Director, Tate Brazas (tbrazas@uchicago.edu), with your logistical and administrative questions! 

Requests for same-year funding of $750 or less are assessed on a rolling basis; requests for same-year funding of more than $750 are assessed quarterly.  Proposals for future academic year/s are assessed annually in the spring.

 

Proposals for AY 2026-27

Proposals for projects, programming, and events for AY 26-27 are due by Friday, May 15. Please submit to Tate Brazas and to Kaneesha Parsard according to the guidelines below.

We especially welcome proposals that think with our programming theme for AY 26-27: PROTEST. 

To protest is to assert, to object, or to gather for the purposes of voicing disapproval. This programmatic theme draws on the protest central to feminist and queer action and to the establishment of what would become gender and sexuality studies in the 1960s and 1970s. At the University of Chicago, the values of free expression, open discourse, and academic freedom have been built through student and faculty protest against sex discrimination, sexual harassment, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation on campus, and solidarity with communities in Chicago and beyond. Protest has also been an object of study in gender and sexuality studies itself: Douglas Crimp's account of mourning and militancy, for example, has been key to the history of HIV/AIDS. Differently than other keywords in the field, like movements (organizations and their tactics, or the action at the core of gender performance) or justice (a political ideal), protest is both negative in its opposition to an undesirable state of affairs and doggedly optimistic. Today, as certain U.S. schools, colleges and universities have banned the study, even the utterance of, women, gender, and sexuality, the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality welcomes courses, seminars, and programs on or related to feminist and queer protest.

 

Funding Types and Guidelines

Programming and Events

Proposals and requests for funding should include the following: 

  • a description of the program and its intended audience/impact (one page max);
  • a list of possible and/or confirmed co-sponsors and collaborators (including names and departments/affiliations);
  • other funding sources (requested or secured, please specify);
  • proposed dates of the event (estimated or confirmed, please specify);

  • a detailed financial budget (contact Tate Brazas to ensure that you’ve provided all necessary information).

     

Research Grants for Faculty 

The CSGS also supports faculty research. Specifically, we offer the following: 

  1. Individual research grants of up to $2,000 for junior faculty affiliated with the Center. Successful applicants must agree to present an aspect of their funded research at the Center within two years of the grant.
  2. Collaborative research grants of up to $3,000. The funds will support meeting and research costs, costs associated with bringing one or more colleagues to campus for a short-term visit, or the costs of travel to work with a collaborator located elsewhere, or other relevant costs. The types of collaborative projects we support vary, and might include: collaborative design of a new CSGS course; preparatory work for a major grant application; co-authorship of an article; collaboration on ethnographic or archival research; etc. We require a brief report at the end of the AY concerning how the funds were used and useful, suitable for inclusion in our CSGS newsletter or other materials.

To apply for a faculty research grant, please submit a proposal to Tate Brazas and Kaneesha Parsard that includes:

  • a description of the research and its anticipated impact (one page max) 
  • a detailed budget. 

Collaborative grant proposals must be submitted by an affiliated faculty person, though collaborators are not required to all be affiliates. 

 

Junior Faculty Research and Publication Grants 

The CSGS offers grants to Assistant Professors to support the publication of their first book. Assistant Professors who are CSGS affiliates may apply for up to $750 to support a manuscript workshop, pay for image permissions, apply funds towards a publication subvention, or defray other publication-related costs. To apply, please submit a description of the book project and an explanation of costs (one-page max) to Tate Brazas and Kaneesha Parsard.

 

Please note: The CSGS attempts to give the broadest access possible to support the work of our affiliates. However, all expenditures are subject to policies that govern the Center’s budget and spending; there may also be instances where the Center must follow policies held and interpreted by the home departments and divisions of the faculty requesting funds (such as collective bargaining unit agreements). Please direct any questions to Tate Brazas at tbrazas@uchicago.edu.