Small Planning Grants

The Small Planning Grant Program aims to foster the establishment of new community-academic research partnerships and new collaborative health research efforts in Detroit. 

Partnership Formation Grants are intended to support newly developing or potential partnerships in, for example, relationship building, exploration of shared areas of interest, creation of partnership structure, and identification of potential research collaborations.

Example activities include:

• Building relationships between partners (e.g. facilitating formal and informal meetings for partners to learn more about each other, to explore the involvement of other potential partners, and to discuss how the partners will adopt and use equitable collaborative principles and operating norms);
• Exploring shared research interests and identifying capacity building needs (e.g. identifying partnership research priorities, determining nature of collaborative research approach that will be used, delineating capacity-building needs, participating in trainings and/or ongoing mentoring opportunities);
• Developing a Steering Committee and/or other appropriate partnership infrastructure mechanisms (e.g. defining roles and responsibilities, developing communication and decision-making mechanisms, policies and procedures; developing a set of collaborative participatory research principles to guide decisions regarding various aspects of the research process); and
• Planning future research collaboration and proposal submissions (e.g. identifying and responding to potential funding opportunities).

Project Development Grants are intended to support established partnerships in, for example, the development of specific new collaborative research efforts, analysis of existing data, enhancing capacity for conducting collaborative research, the dissemination and translation of research findings, and the evaluation of the partnership process.

Example activities include:

• Conducting community assessment(s) to inform new collaborative research efforts (e.g. focus groups to gather data to inform the research question and/or methods);
• Analyzing existing data to help inform future collaborative research (e.g. collaborative analysis, review and interpretation of previously collected data);
• Disseminating and translating research findings (e.g. development and implementation of appropriate dissemination tools, such as, fact sheets and policy briefs, to community and academic audiences and to policy-makers); and
• Evaluating the partnership process (e.g., collecting data to assess how and to what extent the partnership is achieving its goals, and the challenges and facilitating factors associated with developing, maintaining and sustaining the partnership, and identifying future directions for the partnership based on the assessment conducted).

Eligibility Members of the Detroit URC Community-Academic Research Network as well as academic researchers and community entities who are not members of the Network but are willing and able to engage in collaborative research are eligible to apply.

Funding Level Grants of up to $4,000 are awarded for each funding period with a grant duration period of one year. The number and amount of awarded grants is based on the quantity and quality of the submitted proposals. 

Announcements We are not currently accepting applications for this program. Stay tuned for announcements about our next round of funding. For more information please contact Julia Weinert, Detroit URC Communications Specialist, 734.763.0741,  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Round 2 Application

Projects Funded in Round 1

1. Youth Experiences of Violence, Discrimination and Harrassment
Primary Partners: University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ruth Ellis Center, Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation

Goal: Develop and institutionalize a Discrimination, Violence and Harassment Work Group within the Detroit Youth Passages Project, that equitably involves community and academic partners in all phases of the research process. 

Primary Partners: University of Michigan School of Nursing and Community and Home Supports, Inc.

Goal: Increase the partnerships collaborative capacity and sustainability through a systematic evaluation of membership, group process, and partnership goals. 

 

The Detroit URC Planning Grant Program is supported by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (Grant Number: 1RC4MD005694-01) and the University of Michigan.