The information below is from the 2023-2024 request for proposals. Please see the opportunity website for updated information.
Through the UC-HBCU Initiative, the Office of the President encourages UC faculty to actively engage in collaboration and cooperation with faculty and students at HBCUs. Such efforts serve to strengthen and enrich our mission of teaching, research and public service.
The Office of Research and Graduate Studies invites proposals from UC faculty members at any of the 10 campuses to work with undergraduate and master’s-level research scholars from Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Funds will be awarded competitively to support student summer research internships as well as other collaborations or opportunities that serve the goals of the Initiative. Thus, efforts should be aimed at encouraging enrollment of HBCU scholars in UC graduate programs, particularly PhD programs. Grants are available to Principal Investigators in all disciplines.
Funds may be used in different ways to achieve the goals of increased representation, including bringing students to UC campuses for summer research programs, developing web-based tools that allow ongoing collaborations between HBCU students and UC faculty, and travel or meetings to establish or enhance collaborations with HBCU students and faculty. Initiatives designed to sustain long-term collaborations between UC and HBCU departments will be given high priority in the review process.
Types of Awards
1. Summer Research Internship Support Grant – One year grant to support HBCU students who will conduct summer research at a UC campus in summer 2025. This funding may support such activities as fieldwork, laboratory research, literature review, social science data analysis, historical research, paper preparation or other training activities.
2. Summer Research and Graduate Admission Pathways Grant – Three year grant to support students conducting research at a UC campus in 2025 as well as students in 2026 and 2027 (summer research funds are dependent on annual confirmation of student participants and research plan by established deadline). Summer research internship funding may support such activities as fieldwork, laboratory research, literature review, social science data analysis, historical research, paper preparation or other training activities. Graduate admission pathways funds are designed to encourage the development of long- term efforts to increase the number of HBCU students applying to and thriving in UC graduate programs.
3. Small Research Grants – Grant awards up to $50,000 to be used for research projects designed to improve inclusion and the experience of UC-HBCU students generally, and Black students in particular, enrolled in UC Ph.D. programs. Research may focus on a myriad of topics related to this goal, including program/department climate, faculty behaviors - accountability and incentives, the impact on scholarship and experiences that lack substantive inclusion of Black scholars, inequities in program trends, including faculty/researcher behavioral influences and student outcomes, understanding and improving effective mentoring of Black students and other students of color, etc. Research may focus on students within particular UC programs, 5 departments, schools, colleges and/or campus(es). Research ideas are not limited to stated examples, however, projects must address the goal stated above.
Please review the request for proposals and FAQ for additional information.
Award Amount and Details
In order to allow a wide range of participation in the UC- HBCU Initiative, grant award amounts or limits are not specified. Here are two examples of recent awards:
1) a faculty member applies for a one-year internship grant totaling $15,230 to host two students for one summer, while 2) another faculty member proposes a three-year pathways grant totaling $228,440 for a departmental collaborative effort that will host six students a year each summer for three years. A pathways grant requires a longer commitment and focuses on developing collaborative activities with faculty at the HBCU partner institution and creating departmental graduate admission pathway strategies and activities. Since funds are limited, more expensive proposals must be extremely well developed to be funded.
Recent multi-year pathways grants have ranged from $77,000 to just over $500,000 for the total award (to be spent over three years). Proposals requesting large amounts should only be submitted if a strong framework of support to sustain the effort during the grant period can be clearly demonstrated. The most competitive proposals will be those designed to establish a sustainable and significant effect beyond the grant period.
Deadlines and Date Information
The due dates listed below are the most recent due dates our office is aware of. Please see the opportunity home page for information about potential upcoming deadlines or other opportunities.
- Grant proposals are due no later than noon (Pacific Time).
- Awards Announcement: July 2024
Eligibility Information
- Academic Senate Faculty in any discipline at any of the ten campuses of the University of California are eligible.
- Applications should highlight the specifics of the faculty member’s commitment to the Initiative efforts and HBCU faculty partner(s).
- All HBCU partners must be from officially designated HBCUs (per the Higher Education Act of 1965). Before applying, please check the list for eligible partner institutions.
- See request for proposals on the program's homepage for additional information.
