CFP: http://tinyurl.com/2g52gm5
Deadline: LOI by 2/15/2011, 5-page preproposal by 4/12/2011, 7/1/2011 final proposals
Funding:$9.8M for two cycles (this is the second cycle)
Note: Planning grants were awarded in the first year; these deadlines are for project grants only.
The MacArthur Foundation provides support for efforts to strengthen higher education in Russia and Nigeria, two of the Foundation’s focus countries, as well as Madagascar. The Foundation believes that strong universities and intellectual freedom are indispensable preconditions for healthy democratic societies.
The MacArthur Foundation’s higher education initiative in Africa involves Nigeria and Madagascar, where the Foundation works with leading universities to strengthen them and advance their contributions to development in the continent. The initiative partners with four universities in Nigeria — the University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University, Bayero University, and the University of Port Harcourt — and the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar, the country’s leading higher education institution.
Building upon work with the universities to improve institutional capacities in areas such as information technology, libraries, staff development, and university advancement, the Foundation’s current grantmaking focus is developing flagship departments within these institutions. The goal is to strengthen these departments through integrating the universities into relevant disciplinary networks with other universities and institutions in Africa and beyond, thus promoting the exchange of best practices in research, training, teaching, and curriculum. Grantmaking emphasizes disciplines that are strategic to the universities’ institutional development and that have direct relevance to development in Nigeria, Madagascar, and the sub-Saharan African region.
The Foundation is committed to sustaining and advancing new generations of scholars and researchers whose efforts will contribute to resolving the social, environmental, economic, human rights, and security problems facing Russia.
Through grants to universities and to helping build other scholarly capacity, the Foundation supports:
* Centers of excellence in the sciences and social sciences at state universities;
* Independent graduate schools in the social sciences and other institutions of higher education;
* Independent public policy institutes; and
* Journals and networking.
Through the Program on Basic Research and Higher Education in Russia, the Foundation supports 20 research and education centers in the natural and physical sciences at state universities in Russia, with a particular emphasis on universities outside Moscow and St. Petersburg. Through a complementary program, the Centers for Advanced Study and Education, MacArthur supports nine additional centers of excellence in the social sciences and humanities at regional Russian state universities. MacArthur funds three model non-state institutions of higher education that are emerging as centers of world-quality research and graduate training in the social sciences: the European University at St. Petersburg, the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences, and the Moscow-based New Economic School.
In addition, the Foundation supports a complementary set of research and educational institutions and activities in Russia, including independent public policy institutes, scholarly journals, and academic networks. MacArthur also provides grants to independent public policy institutes, academic journals and networking programs.
