New America Foundation: 2024 Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN) Challenge

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In 2024, the Network Challenge focuses on two specific areas:

• Educational offerings that foster cross-disciplinary perspectives and credentialing.
• Career pipeline/placement efforts to develop a public interest technology workforce in government, industry, and social impact organizations.

Project themes may include:

• Environmental, climate, or sustainability projects that provide for opportunities for storytelling around the importance of PIT.
• Policy projects with state and local governmental partnership research or briefs that advance PIT in these key fields: data science, artificial intelligence (AI), or quantum computing.
• Technical projects where students and researchers explicitly engage in storytelling about PIT within the work (Quantum, AI, augmented analytics, machine learning, robotics).
• Democracy and voting projects that explore ways to strengthen public interest systems and broaden participation at the local, state, and federal government levels.
• The intersection of gender and technology in the pursuit of justice and equity.

Funding and Allowable Uses

PIT-UN is inviting proposals in two funding tranches. Budgets should be inclusive of an indirect rate, set at 20% of total direct costs.

Note: Tranche 2 funding has changed for 2024

1. Tranche 1: Up to $90,000 for direct and indirect costs (indirect costs are capped at 20%)
2. Tranche 2: From $90,001 to $145,000 for direct and indirect costs (indirect costs are capped at 20%)

Proposals requesting Tranche 2 funding must include at least 50% in-kind contribution funding from the primary institution.

Note: If the required institutional in-kind funding is less than 50%, the proposal will not be considered.

Eligibility

In this sixth year of the Network Challenge, PIT-UN will accept the following types of proposals in response to its RFP:

1. New Projects: Projects that have not received prior funding from the PIT-UN Challenge (“new projects”).
2. Expansion and Scale of Existing Projects: Projects that have received prior funding from the PIT-UN Challenge in 2019, 2020, 2021, or 2022, but have not received three years of Network Challenge funding can apply for additional funding to expand and/or scale their project (“previously funded projects”).

Projects ineligible to apply for funding are Network Challenge projects of any year that have not submitted their project's final reports (narrative and budget reconciliation) to New Venture Fund using the Submittable grant management system.

Limits

Limited Submissions

The PIT-UN Network Challenge is a limited submission funding opportunity and limits the number of applications from one institution. These “limited submission” funding opportunities must undergo an internal selection process (also known as an internal competition), which is coordinated by the institution. Please consult your institution before you develop any applications.

Additionally, there is a limit to the number of proposals a PIT-UN member university can submit:

• Proposals for up to a total of three new projects. Only one of these can fall within the funding Tranche 2 ($90,001–$145,000).
• Proposals to expand/scale previously awarded projects, outlined in Eligibility section ii, can fall into either funding Tranche 1 (up to $90,000) or Tranche 2* ($90,001–$145,000).

Proposals requesting Tranche 2 funding must include at least 50% in-kind contribution funding from the primary institution. Proposed budgets should be inclusive of an indirect rate, set at 20% of total direct costs.

Note: Proposals can only be funded with Network Challenge funding for three years.

A person may be listed as the principal investigator (PI) on only one Network Challenge application, but individuals may be listed as collaborators on multiple applications.

Projects that are a partnership between two or more universities should submit one single application from the lead institution. Projects should explain the nature of the partnership, including the division of labor and funds in the proposal.

Each PIT-UN member has identified one point of contact for submitting all grant applications for their institutions. Only that point of contact should be accessing the online grant platform. If you do not know who your PIT-UN member Network Challenge point of contact is, get in touch with your institution's PIT-UN designee.