Request for Proposals for Grants to US Universities
About Partnership 2020
The Partnership 2020: Leveraging US-India Cooperation in Higher Education to Harness Economic Opportunities and Innovation project goal is to strengthen the strategic partnership between the US and India through collaboration in higher education, research on key issue areas, related economic growth, and people-to-people linkages. This is a three-year project with most of the activities taking place in 2019, 2020, and 2021. Work products will include a searchable database of US-India university partnerships, policy recommendations on enhancing US-India partnerships, practical guide to successful partnerships, and grants to eligible US universities to enhance partnerships with Indian universities. Partnership 2020 is a collaborative agreement between University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and US Department of State (DOS) with Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) playing a key advisory role.
Funding Available *All money allocated for grants is awarded at this time and we will not accept any new applications at this time*
There are grants available to eligible US universities (see next section for eligibility requirements). These awards will range $10,000 up to $75,000. Applicants are encouraged to consider smaller award amounts, designing projects that leverage other funds. For smaller awards, the timelines for implementation may be shorter, while larger awards may be longer. Depending on dollar amounts, there will be approximately five to ten awards available during the two-year project period.
Key Considerations and Eligibility
This list of considerations is provided as a guide to help applicants develop responsive, robust program strategies that will have the intended impact.
1. Eligible applicants will be public or private US universities with non-profit status.
2. Although the selection panel will review any eligible application, we favor submissions from US universities that partner with Indian universities in “tier-two” or smaller cities and we will look for some geographic parity to awardees both in the US and India. Proposals should also consider how to integrate US and Indian sub-national entities such as states or municipal governments.
3. Applicant can be a department of an eligible US university or the institution as a whole, and partnering with a department of an eligible Indian university or the institution as a whole.
4. An important consideration in the selection will be how the award will impact economic development, job creation, and commercial links between the US and India.
5. We strongly encourage applicants to focus on one or more of ten strategic areas:
1) Public health
2) Sustainable agriculture
3) Advanced engineering
4) Life sciences
5) Artificial intelligence
6) Renewable energy
7) Financial technology
8) Water management
9) Business and innovation
10) Regional security
Matching
We strongly encourage those US and Indian universities to consider how to leverage existing funds for their partnerships in order to enhance the tie-up during this Partnership 2020 grant. Showing how you leverage other funding will strengthen your application.
Application Requirements
Complete applications must include the following:
- Cover Page (not to exceed one page) that includes a table with the name of the organization, project title, target country/countries, thematic area, project synopsis, and name and contact information for the application’s main point of contact.
- Executive Summary (not to exceed one page) that outlines project goals, objectives, and activities.
- Proposal Narrative (not to exceed three page) that explains how the award will enhance a current or establish a new partnership with an Indian university and impact economic development. Please clearly state Results Anticipated from grant. Please consider addressing the following questions as part of your Proposal Narrative: How will enhancing your US – Indian university partnership…
A. Address one or more of the ten strategic areas?
B. Benefit your US university and surrounding area businesses?
C. Benefit the India university and surrounding area businesses?
D. Have tangible impacts on economic development, job creation and entrepreneurship?
E. Increase people-to-people ties between US and India?
F. Increase academic integrity in India?
G. Do you anticipate any income earned, such as commercialization of research results, from this project? (NOTE: After the grant period this is OK, but during the grant period it is not.)
H. What systems do you have in place for ensuring values that reflect academic and research integrity?
I. How will students in US and India be involved in and benefit from your project?
J. How will high-level research skills be shared between partners?
K. How will your project engage state and local government officials?
L. How will your project engage civil society leaders?
M. How will your project be sustained after the grant award period ends?
N. How will you measure success? - Budget that includes three columns containing the request for the grant from Partnership 2020, any funds leveraged from other sources, and the total budget. Costs must be in U.S. dollars. Detailed line-item budgets for applicants (such as the Indian partner university) should be included as additional tabs within the Excel workbook.
- Budget Narrative (not to exceed one page) that includes explanations and justifications for each line-item in the detailed budget spreadsheet, as well as the source and a description of any leveraged existing funds.
- Monitoring and Evaluation Narrative (not to exceed one page) that includes how you will measure the success of your project.
- Key Personnel (not to exceed one page total for all bios) including short bios – not full CVs – that demonstrate relevant professional experience.
- Timeline (not to exceed one page total) for the overall proposal should include brief description of activities discussed in the proposal narrative section, evaluation efforts, and project closeout which must be on or before November 30, 2020.
NOTE: All narrative documents should be in Microsoft Word and all spreadsheets should be in Microsoft Excel.
For all application documents, please ensure:
⦁ All documents are in English and all costs are in U.S. dollars.
⦁ All pages are numbered, including budgets and attachments.
⦁ All documents are formatted to 8 ½ x 11 paper.
⦁ All documents are single-spaced, 12 point Times New Roman font, with 1-inch margins. Captions and footnotes may be 10 point Times New Roman font. Font sizes in charts and tables, including the budget, can be reformatted to fit within 1 page width.
⦁ Applicants are encouraged to combine multiple documents in a single Word Document.
Applications that do not include the elements listed above will be deemed technically ineligible.
Review and Selection Process
These grants will be decided on a rolling basis with the first review process starting approximately March 1, 2019. Review and selection will be made for these grants approximately every quarter until the funding is spent. Selection of these meritorious projects will be made by a panel of representatives from UNO, DOS and CSIS. The selection panel strives to ensure that each eligible application receives a balanced evaluation. The review panel may provide conditions and recommendations on applications to enhance the proposed project, which must be addressed by the applicant before further consideration of the project. To ensure effective use funds, conditions or recommendations may include requests to increase, decrease, clarify, and/or justify costs and project activities.
Submit to partnership2020@unomaha.edu.
Contact
For more information on this RFP please contact:
Soraya Rahmanzai, Partnership 2020 Project Coordinator
University of Nebraska at Omaha
partnership2020@unomaha.edu
+1-402-554-2375