Call for Applications: Anti-Racist Digital Research Institute
November 19, 2025
Call for Applications: 2026 Graduate Anti-Racism Research Grants
January 16, 2026Call for Applications: 2026 Anti-Racism Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellowship
The Phillip J. Bowman Center for Scholarship to Practice (the Bowman Center) supports a variety of activities targeted to all faculty that catalyze innovation in research and scholarship, as well as inform practice, public engagement, and action to advance anti-racist principles and organizing.
The 2026 Anti-Racism Research & Community Impact Faculty Fellowship will provide instrumental support to early career faculty to advance their anti-racism scholarship in ways that can lead to successful tenure/promotion and support their efforts to utilize their expertise to fight systemic racism through policy advocacy, practice, teaching, and/or community partnerships. We welcome projects grounded in broad perspectives on advancing understandings of anti-racism and informing interventions that minimize, if not eradicate, its effects on modern society.
Projects should align with the Bowman Center’s definition of anti-racism scholarship. We understand anti-racism scholarship to explicitly recognize and address how racism operates historically and contemporarily within (and is reinforced by) systems, institutions, policy, and social forces. Furthermore, we acknowledge that anti-racism scholarship may consist of knowledge production and scholarly inquiry that requires forms of community and public engagement that expand the parameters of traditional investigation. Central to this agenda is supporting the production of scholarship that embraces and fosters understanding of intersectionality as fundamental to how different people may experience and respond to racial phenomena.
Eligibility
We are seeking applications from early career faculty (defined as pre-tenure or, for those not in tenure track appointments, within 8 years of receiving their PhD), regardless of their discipline, identities, or background. Projects that contribute to the dismantling of systemic racism, but that do not easily meet the criteria of traditional funding sources for research and scholarship, are especially suited for this competition.
Such work may include (but is not limited to):
- Research designs that include plans for community outreach and/or community receipt of scholarship
- Scholarship intended for public audiences
- Employing academic expertise to develop tools that impact policy or enhance community capacity and resources to fight systemic racism.
Fellowship Terms
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- The fellowship will provide early career faculty with one summer ninth salary, up to $7,500 in project funds (to be expended per policies and procedures for your respective school/college, department, and U-M), and $5,000 for student research assistants.
- Funds may be used for a new project or to support an ongoing project.
- We will fund up to 5-6 projects starting in Spring 2026 for a one-year grant period.
- Fellows will be invited to participate in the Bowman Center activities to amplify their work and support their professional development.
- At the end of the grant period, fellows will be required to:
- Submit a final report summarizing progress and outcomes related to their proposed project narrative and how funds were used. We request acknowledgement of the sponsorship of the Bowman Center on any publication(s) and/or deliverables resulting from the funded project.
- Present your research to the Bowman Center community in a workshop, colloquium, or other venue that is conducive for you.
Application & Process
Successful project narratives will address the following (using no more than five single-spaced pages, excluding references, tables, or figures, or attachments):
- The proposed scope of work (project) that this funding will support, project objectives, deliverables, a one-year timeline, and budget.
- Address how this project fits into your program of scholarship and broader anti-racism work.
- Projected impact of this project, including how this project aligns with the Bowman Center’s definition of Anti-Racism Scholarship:
- We understand anti-racism scholarship to explicitly recognize and address how racism operates historically and contemporarily within (and is reinforced by) systems, institutions, policy, and social forces. Furthermore, we acknowledge that anti-racism scholarship may consist of knowledge production and scholarly inquiry that requires forms of community and public engagement that expands the parameters of traditional investigation.
- Other funding sources you have attempted to attain, or the limitations of currently existing sources of funding in your field, for this work. Please include any other sources of summer salary for the PI.
Please also include an updated CV.
Applications will be accepted via InfoReady and are due by Friday, March 20, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. We anticipate announcing decisions by the end of April 2026, with funds to be disbursed to departmental shortcodes in May 2026.
Administration of Funds
Funds will be transferred to a specified project grant within the fellow’s home department. The recipient is responsible for coordinating with the Bowman Center staff and their home department to arrange for good stewardship of the funds. Recipients must adhere to any applicable policy and procedures established by their school/college, department, and the University.
Reporting Guidelines
Applicants who receive funding must submit a two-page final report within 30 days of the end of the funding period (a report template will be provided), and any grant funds that are unused by the end of the grant period must be returned to the Bowman Center within 90 days to allow time for financial reconciliation processes to be completed. Any changes in budget items or project period must first be approved by the Bowman Center.
We welcome discussions with interested early career faculty about the goals of this fellowship and potential project ideas. Please email Alford Young, Jr., Faculty Associate Director of Anti-Racism Research, at arc-faculty-director@umich.edu.
