Institute of Portland Metropolitan Studies

Community Based Research Partnership Funding

PSU’s commitment to letting knowledge serve the city is known nationally. Community based research partnerships (CBRP) take time, financial resources, and long-term commitments. Community partners may want to know what types of resources the university is putting into forming, strengthening, or maintaining these relationships.

To support CBRP efforts at PSU, the Institute of Metropolitan Studies (IMS) is offering one time funds, up to $10,000, to build researchers’ relationships with community partners. We especially encourage requests for much smaller amounts of money.

Background

Founded in 1991, IMS serves as a research and public education center. IMS is housed in the Toulan School of Urban Studies & Planning in the College of Urban and Public Affairs. Its mission is to: “build partnerships between Portland State University’s urban studies programs and the surrounding communities of metropolitan Portland and to sponsor public service research.”

As part of advancing this mission, IMS seeks to nurture faculty members’ community partnerships, including advancing and developing new ones. This year we are piloting small seed funding allotments that must be spent in a short period of time to help support the work of faculty working in communities.

Timeline

There will be two application rounds for these funds:

Round 1

Proposal Deadline: December 1, 2023
Awardees Notified: December 15, 2023

Round 2

Proposal Deadline: January 19, 2024
Awardees Notified: February 2, 2024

Funds must be expended by: June 1, 2024

Because of the current budget context, we have no commitment that money can be carried over from this year to next. Any proposer must demonstrate how their plans work with this deadline, and understand that transactions not completed by June 1, 2024 will not be reimbursed. We strongly encourage submissions that can most easily meet the proposal’s research relationship goals and guarantee the funding will be used.

Project Requirements

Proposed applications of these funds should:

  • Demonstrate either:
    • Ongoing community based research relationship; or,
    • Advancing a new or early stage relationship. Funds may be used to attend trainings about building community research partnerships
  • Be applicable to the region, defined here as Clackamas, Clark, Multnomah, and Washington Counties.
    • We know that deep partnerships are often local, however, topics should be relevant to the region.
    • We encourage people with long-standing geographical partnerships to apply to expand partnerships and / or identify ways to share knowledge regionally.
  • Speak to racial equity.
  • Write a blog entry summarizing your work and learnings, and/or participate in a half to one day symposium next academic year (24-25) about your work.

Proposal Content and Application Process

Please submit the following documents (preferably in PDF format) to IMS@pdx.edu.

  1. Project narrative [4 pages max; single spaced] to include:
    1. Overview
    2. Project goal
    3. Project activities and timeline
    4. Community Partner:
      1. Description of your partner partner including details of your relationship and how your work supports your partner
      2. Description of how the activities will advance your goals and the partner relationship
    5. Description of how the topic and / or partner is relevant in the Portland region, including Clackamas, Clark, Multnomah, and Washington Counties.
    6. Plan for dissemination / findings / description plan about what you did and learned, to be shared on the IMS website.
  2. Budget [1⁄2 page] - please see Eligible Expenses listed at the bottom of this document
  3. CV(s) of the faculty applying for the funds
  4. Short letter or email from your partner saying they want to or are working with you. If you are trying to learn how to do this work, please explain who you imagine your partners could be and how your work could support their efforts.

Eligibility

Full-time faculty. Faculty applications will be prioritized based on unit: USP, CUPA, and
then campus-wide.

Eligible Expenses

Preferred expenses:

  • Food, room rentals, other event related expenses
  • Conference travel (excluding conferences where the faculty member is the only participant and the purpose to present a scholarly paper; trainings for the faculty member alone to build CBRP skills are acceptable)
  • Communication materials
  • Open to other ideas provided they are acceptable to PSU (e.g., no alcohol)

Acceptable, but not prioritized expenses:

  • Course buyouts
  • Graduate students