SIF171  3C 2.0

Project Manager: Frederick H. Epstein

Approved: December 2020

The purpose of this proposal is to provide a second round of funding for the 3Cavaliers program as a follow up to SIF129.

Project Dates: 1/01/2021 – 12/31/2023

Total Funding: $2,600,000

Executive Summary

This seed funding program will support new, collaborative, high-risk, early-stage research between three UVA faculty members (3 Cavaliers) from at least two units representing disparate disciplines to form interdisciplinary Cavalier Trios (“CTs”) across UVA Grounds to address complex global societal challenges with consequential outcomes. This SIF award provides a funding for a second round of the 3Cavaliers (3C) seed funding program, which was originally funded under SIF Project #129. By empowering faculty creativity and significantly advancing our interdisciplinary research culture, this program will increase the research capacity of the University and position the faculty teams to be highly competitive for extramural funding from federal agencies and philanthropic organizations, and/or enable faculty to progress toward the gold standard of scholarly excellence in their field.

Current Status: Active

Progress

This seed funding program is supporting new, collaborative, high-risk, early-stage research between three UVA faculty members (3 Cavaliers) from at least two units representing disparate disciplines to form interdisciplinary Cavalier Trios (“CTs”) across UVA Grounds to address complex global societal challenges with consequential outcomes. This second round of the 3 Cavaliers (3C) seed funding program, which was originally funded under SIF Project #129, has made great progress. We have recruited a program manager and a financial manager to work with our VPR staff to organize and operationalize this award. We worked with the 12 schools and multiple other units to form MOUs and advertise the opportunity to faculty. We have updated the 3c.virginia.edu website where all information is housed for this award. For this round we have funded 53 projects @ $60K each ($3,180,000) and 4 projects @ $15K each for a total of $3,240,000 in award funding. Our team has executed individual MOUs with each funded project and set up accounts and tracking. We are continuing to monitor the projects, providing no-cost extensions, maintaining the website, and we have completed a significant amount of work transitioning the funding of the projects from oracle to workday financials. These projects were made for 18 months, with up to a six-month extension and will conclude in the spring of 2023. We are well into filming the videos of the projects and planning and preparations for the spring 2023 symposium event to be held at the conclusion of these projects in May.