Writing Grants

Writing Grants of up to $1000 are available annually for ten to fifteen successful faculty applicants. These one-time only grants will provide aid to UVa faculty members facing the often difficult challenges of scholarly writing at any stages of their careers. Former PAW Grant Recipients report a range of benefits from participating in the program, including such comments as the following:

• If it were not for this grant, I would have always considered hiring an editor a luxury that I cannot afford.  Now, I realize that it is a necessity that I cannot afford not to have. It proved to be invaluable to my writing process. 
• This grant allowed me to establish a work schedule and deadlines throughout the year for my book project, which has always been on the “back burner” during the academic year in the past.
• This collaboration with my editor has resulted in improved effectiveness and efficiency in writing, especially with respect to increasing the accessibility of my ideas to potential grant reviewers by overcoming a self-centered perspective and evaluating the use of technical descriptions.

Who is eligible? Full-time UVa faculty working on a scholarly writing project (including grant proposals, journal and book manuscripts). This includes tenure-track and tenured faculty from across the Grounds as well as Academic General Faculty with a long-term appointment. Adminstrative and Professional General Faculty may also be eligible, and should explain in their application how their project aligns with their current position or furthers their professional development at UVa.

How may the Grants be used? Faculty members awarded a grant may apply it towards the following expenditures, among others, as long as they are acceptable in your discipline and department:

• hiring a writing coach to help you focus on your writing
• hiring an editor for light to moderate editing or developmental editing for a writing project, including manuscripts for books or journals and grant proposals
• hiring an editor or coach to help you improve your grant writing abilities and/or writing skill
• hiring a graduate student from your department to edit your work. Note: This has been particularly successful for former grant winners writing highly technical material and foreign nationals writing in English.
• NEW: paying the honoraria for senior scholar(s) who travel to UVa for a book conference to consult with you on your book project.

The Grants are intended to help with writing and writing-related issues rather than with the technicalities of manuscript preparation (e.g., proof-reading, subventions, indexing, transcription).

What does the Program entail? Program offerings will include an initial informational session and several meetings focused on topics relevant to the grant recipients' expressed interests or concerns. Grant recipients are expected to attend the inital session and at least two others during the year of their award. They may also take advantage of other opportunities offered throughout the program.PAW Writing Grants must be spent by May 1 of the academic year awarded and may not be used for summer salary. Grant recipients will submit by June 1 of that academic year a final report detailing their expenditures and progress on their writing project(s).

Applications for a 2011-12 Writing Grant are due at the Teaching Resource Center Tuesday, November 1. Award winners will be notified later during the summer.

A complete application consists of these three parts:

1. The completed on-line form (click to download) submitted electronically or by mail
   
2. Your curriculum vitae
   
3. A letter or email of support (click to download template) from your department or program chair. This letter should both support your application and approve your proposed use of the grant money as appropriate to scholarly work in your discipline.

Selection Criteria:

To be competitive, a proposal must…

• propose a well-thought out, feasible and reasonable plan, explaining how the Grant will be used, in as much detail as possible.
  
• make a persuasive case for why the Grant will help the applicant complete or make significant progress on a written project
• explain why this Grant is important to you at this point in your career and how it will further your professional development at UVa
  
• include a compelling support letter from the chair that speaks both to the appropriateness of the applicant's proposal within his/her scholarly field and to the possible effects the grant will have on the applicant's scholarly productivity.

Submit electronic applications or direct questions to: trc-paw@virginia.edu