The Center for Meaning and Purpose (CM+P), which is housed in the Department of Psychology, is announcing a competition to provide grants to graduate students in support of their research. CM+P is a multidisciplinary research center that currently includes faculty and graduate students from three colleges at CSU.

CM+P is seeking to support graduate student-led research in any discipline that is consistent with the center’s purpose and mission:

“The purpose of the Center for Meaning and Purpose is to become a leading resource locally and globally through development as an active multidisciplinary organization for acquiring, creating, and disseminating knowledge about the factors that enable people, organizations, and societies to create meaning, well-being, positive health, and quality of life.”

Qualifying projects

The domain of research is open, as long as it is within the graduate student applicant’s discipline of study. It’s available to any research project that advances knowledge in the areas described in the center’s purpose and mission, and could include research projects conducted within the arts, humanities, agriculture, anthropology, landscape design, construction management, veterinary sciences, economics, ethnic studies, literature or business. It could also involve disciplines more traditionally associated with these topics, such as psychology, sociology, human development, occupational therapy, nutrition, and health and exercise sciences.

Grants of at least $500 are expected to be made. The amount awarded to each proposal will depend on the number of qualified proposals received and the number of grants awarded. Grants administration is subject to the funding policies of the Department of Psychology, which requires the submission of qualified research costs for reimbursement up to the amount of the grant awarded. Thus, the grants are applicable to direct research costs only, such as equipment, software, or participant payments. Researcher salary is not eligible. Travel is not eligible unless that travel is necessary to access research data or samples of interest (e.g., travel to present at conferences is not supported).

Requirements for interested applicants:
• Must be enrolled in an on-campus graduate degree program at CSU for the upcoming academic year.

Grant applications must include:
• A letter of support from a tenure-track CSU faculty member attesting to capacity to carry out proposed research (up to one page).
• A statement of the research question. This statement should provide background for that question in the applicant’s field of specialization, provide sufficient methodological details and anticipated impact of proposed research to allow non-specialist faculty to judge the quality, and must include a budget for at least $500 in direct research costs (equipment, software, participant payments, recruiting costs, etc.) (up to four pages).
• A statement of how the proposed projects further the purpose of CM+P (one paragraph).

Proposals will be judged on how well they meet the above criteria

Grant applications are due May 20 and may be submitted to michael.f.steger@colostate.edu.