Grant recipients: Download the CIRA Awardees' Contract

MISSION STATEMENT

CIRA has been committed to cutting-edge, interdisciplinary arts research since its inception in 1986. CIRA encourages bordercrossings: across the fields of written, visual and performing arts; across disciplines and schools; between faculty, staff, and students; and between Northwestern and outside communities. Since 1996, CIRA's focus has been to promote and fund art works that are interdisciplinary and/or collaborative in their creation, production, or dissemination. Traditionally the arts have been an area in which new ideas are tested, norms are challenged, and possibilities are entertained. CIRA supports such innovative work.

CIRA is funded by the Office of the Provost, the Office of the President, and the Dean of The Graduate School. 

(The following concerns CIRA grants for faculty/staff projects. For information on CIRA grants for graduate student projects, see http://www.tgs.northwestern.edu/financialaid/fellowshipsandscholarships/fellowshipsandgrants/cira/)

AWARD AMOUNT

The maximum award for a single faculty/staff project is $16,000.

ELIGIBILITY

All Northwestern University faculty and staff are eligible to apply. (See project eligibility guidelines below.)

APPLICATION 

Download the 2009-10 CIRA Faculty/Staff Application Instructions

Download the 2009-10 CIRA Faculty/Staff Application Forms

Applications are due by 12:00 noon on Friday, April 2, 2009. 

Awards will be announced at the end of Spring quarter.

GUIDELINES

Faculty/staff whose art projects meet the following criteria are urged to apply.

• CIRA’s first priority is to fund projects that challenge traditional notions of art in an innovative way and fit into one of three categories: transdisciplinary, collaborative, or interdisciplinary.  

  • Transdisciplinary projects are those proposed by a single creator, and must be multidisciplinary in concept.
  • Collaborative projects are those proposed by creators who come from the same discipline. These projects must show how they involve new practices beyond what is traditional in their fields.
  • Interdisciplinary projects are those proposed by collaborators from different disciplines. These projects are expected to combine disciplines in new ways. (Applicants from fields that are by definition interdisciplinary, such as theater and film, must show how their project goes beyond the traditional interdisciplinary nature of their field.)

• CIRA’s second priority is to fund innovative artistic projects by individuals.

• Within the criteria outlined above, projects may be in any of the arts or in a combination of arts; they may be oriented either toward the creation of new art, or the presentation of art in new ways.
• Participants may include scholars, and some aspects of the project may be scholarly, but projects dedicated to scholarship alone will not be funded. We particularly encourage projects that find new ways to bring scholarship and creative arts together, or that think about the practice(s) of scholarship and art-making in conjunction.
• Projects that bring together different parts of the Northwestern community are encouraged. Examples include: exchanges among artists and scholars in different disciplines or schools; events that provide a chance for dialogue among faculty, staff, and students; or projects that invite response from people outside the specialized fields of the presenters.
• Projects may include artists, scholars, or communities from outside of Northwestern University.

 QUESTIONS

 Contact Mary Pat Doyle at The Graduate School: 847-491-8497 or mdoyle@northwestern.edu