#PRATTRESEARCHPOWER
If you are at Pratt Institute and would like to pursue a research project, opportunity, or challenge by submitting a grant proposal or partnering with an outside organization, please contact us at research-partnerships@pratt.edu and we will be happy to explore the possibilities with you. If you are submitting a grant proposal to an outside funding agency we ask that you to fill out the routing form.
Faculty Development Fund
The Pratt Institute Faculty Development Fund (FDF) provides financial support for the professional development and advancement of full-time faculty, chairpersons, and members of the adjunct and visiting faculty. An FDF grant may fund studio projects, travel, work on publications, research, interdisciplinary collaborations or curriculum or other projects.
FDF grants fund projects that meet at least one of the following criteria:
- Production of original artistic, cultural or scholarly content that contributes to professional development
- Development or acquisition of professional skills (e.g., through participation in workshops or training)
- Interdisciplinary collaborations (e.g. in coursework or projects) within the Institute.
The FDF offers two categories of grants: individual FDF grants and collaborative FDF grants. Joint applications by faculty may be submitted in the collaborative category.
Thanks to the generous support of the David and Jane Walentas Faculty Development Endowment Fund, the 2023–24 awards will total up to $100,000, with $20,000 allocated to encourage the development of collaborative/cross-disciplinary courses/studies/projects at the Institute.
Apply to the 2025 Faculty Development Fund
Ride: Risk/Dare/Experiment
The RiskDareExperiment grants are intended to bring into a visible arena certain processes related to artistic and design practices—specifically the importance of fashioning new creative processes, of risk-taking and of experimentation—as well as to support projects designed to instigate interdepartmental collaborations. The RiDE “Episodes” can take any number of forms and fulfill one or more of the four major objectives in Pratt’s Board-approved Strategic Plan 2012-2017.
There is wide latitude in both the content of the proposed projects and their formats. Proposals can be comprised of: a series of lectures or workshops, mini-festivals, special events, seed funding for a cross-departmental course or a sponsored project, the development of a new minor, an exhibition, alternative offerings or a combination of any of the above—a lecture series tied to the development of a new degree, for example, with an exhibitory component.
Proposals are accepted from teams of two or more departmental chairpersons or faculty. Priority consideration will be given to teams whose members are from multiple departments and schools, and initiatives that engage a cross-section of the Pratt community.
Graduate Student Engagement Fund
Graduate students at Pratt seek opportunities to enhance their scholarly and creative pursuits. An example includes the Graduate Student Engagement Fund (GSEF) that encourages and supports the professional development and advancement of graduate students through their work on creative/critical projects. Projects that are put forward by groups or individuals promise to benefit the students who propose the projects and—through events and publications to make this work more broadly available—the larger Pratt community.
STEAMplant Initiative
The Mission of the STEAMplant Initiative is to foster interdisciplinary collaboration between the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields and “art” as defined by the diverse disciplines pursued at Pratt.
STEAMplant supports its mission through four programs, which produce work that engages an audience in STEM:
- The Sirovich Family Student Scholarship Program supports, with up to $5,000 in funding, graduate and upperclass undergraduate students at Pratt doing STEAM work in their major or thesis.
- The STEAMplant STEP Grant supports, with up to $7,500 in funding, STEAM projects conducted by Pratt community members that engage STEP students in a STEM discipline.
- The Sirovich Family Residency Program supports, with up to $7,500 in funding, creative and scientific professionals outside of the Pratt community seeking to work on a STEAM project in residency at Pratt.
- The Sirovich Family Residency Program supports, with up to $7,500 in funding, creative and scientific professionals outside of the Pratt community seeking to work on a STEAM project in residency at Pratt.
Projects are additionally supported by the broad array of resources that are available at the Institute, including vast knowledge and a wide range of technological capabilities, especially those that can be used to produce creative work. STEAMplant projects produce work that can be exhibited or shared publicly on or off Pratt’s campus, and communicated to a targeted audience through organized events, social media, and our mailing list.
The following partnerships were established in 2016, and represent extraordinary opportunities for Pratt students.
Lehigh Mountaintop Initiative
Big, challenging, open-ended questions. Multi-disciplinary student teams with space, time and support to start solving them. That’s the Lehigh Mountaintop experience. Lehigh University has welcomed Pratt as a partner in this program, which—over 4 years—has supported over 70 student teams. They have worked on topics ranging from “3-D Concrete Printing Methods and Applications” to “Orthopedic Shoes” to sustainable development, the development of “smart spaces,” and more.
The DO School
The DO School program, Innovate NYC, offers students from NYC universities a unique opportunity to launch their careers as changemaker.