Learn grant-funding, technical infrastructure, and risk management in the NCSU Libraries OPEN Incubator program

CALL FOR PROPOSALS—The NCSU Libraries’ Copyright and Digital Scholarship Center is seeking proposals for the Open Project Engagement Network (OPEN) Incubator, a research accelerator. Members of the NC State community may propose a research project infused with open values, producing scholarship that is discoverable, findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable.

Program participants will work together to craft their ideas in the cohort-based, OPEN Incubator. The OPEN Incubator is a structured, seven-week program beginning in Summer 2019 designed to connect researchers from various backgrounds to each other in a trans-disciplinary space and to facilitate the sharing of ideas, resources, methods, and techniques.

The OPEN Incubator will provide participants the opportunity to refine their research project through planning, testing, and peer review. Each week will focus on a different topic. All OPEN Incubator participants will meet together each week throughout the program, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to share their ideas.

The topics we will cover over the course of the OPEN Incubator curriculum may include:

• Proposal Development and Project Management
• Technical Infrastructure and Tools
• Planning for Collaborative Partnerships: Rights, Privacy, Licensing, and Data
• Implementing Open
• Proof of Concept: Market, Communicate, and Evaluate

Throughout the program, we will discuss: 1) talking about your research to a wider audience; 2) sustaining your project beyond completion; and 3) valuation of new forms of research in fields that privilege written work, among other topics.

Proposal requirements and schedule
In order to participate, an applicant must be willing to commit to one two-hour meeting per week for seven weeks. You will leave the OPEN Incubator with an increased understanding of project planning and management, resources to begin, and a knowledge of the tools you will need to expand your project. We will be accepting four to six projects to participate in the Summer 2019 semester.

The Libraries will make funds of up to $1,000 per project available at the close of the program to cover technical costs, hire a graduate student, or otherwise develop the full project or to attend a conference that will increase their project’s potential for success (e. g., OpenCon, DHSI, FORCE, ScholComm Institute).

Please fill out this form if you wish to be considered for the OPEN Incubator program.