Call for Proposals: Building Bridges between CCI and the Arts and Design Communities

Objective

Virginia’s Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) aims to create a Commonwealth-wide ecosystem of innovation excellence at the intersection of cybersecurity, autonomous systems, and data. CCI’s mission includes research, innovation, and workforce development. CCI announces this call for proposals to bring together CCI research with researchers from the arts and design community across the CCI Network. The program is funded by CCI and co-organized with the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT) at Virginia Tech, and the da Vinci Center for Innovation at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU).

The program challenges the community of researchers in the Arts and Design to reimagine and depict the results of cybersecurity research (and in particular research that occurs in CCI) either for scientific purposes, or for creative arts practice purposes. Transdisciplinary partnerships with CCI researchers are encouraged, but we will give priority to proposals led by researchers in the Arts and Design disciplines.

Additional information about CCI, including member institutions and researchers, is available at cyberinitiative.org.

Eligibility

Individuals who hold a regular tenured or tenure-track or research professor position at any public higher education institution that is a member of CCI are eligible to apply.

Awards

We anticipate funding proposals with a budget that does not exceed US $25,000. Budgets should be proportional to anticipated scale of impact. Indirect costs (IDC) are not allowable.Successful applicants are expected to participate fully in the activities of CCI, including providing materials needed for reports, participation in CCI meetings, and responding to data collection requests by CCI. All publications and presentations resulting from the grant should acknowledge support from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI). The following costs are not allowable:

• Costs of developing and delivering undergraduate programs or courses.
• Scholarships for costs of attendance at institutions of higher education.

Proposal Format

Proposals must use 1inch margins, 11-point font or larger (Arial or Helvetica) and single line spacing. The following outline is to be followed:

1. Title page (one page):
   Title of the proposed project, name, affiliation, and contact information for Principal Investigator (PI) and co-Principal Investigators (co-PIs), if any.
2. Proposed Project (up to 3 pages):
   • Description of the project: objectives, methodology, milestones, and timeline.
   • Discussion of the alignment of the project with CCI objectives.
   • Anticipated outcomes and deliverables.
   • Dissemination to researchers and/or the broader public, including presentation of the results of the project in public exhibitions.
   • Social, economic, and/or cultural impact of the project, and in particular impact to the Commonwealth of Virginia
3. Budget (one page):
   Budget items and justification.
4. Biographies (one page):
   Short biographies of PI and co-PIs
   

Schedule

Evaluation Criteria

A committee including representatives from CCI will review the proposals and make funding recommendations. Evaluation criteria will include:

• Alignment with CCI research and responsiveness to the objectives of this call.
• Impact to Commonwealth residents, students, and employers.
• Clear deliverable and dissemination strategy proposed for the project.