Saint Mary’s University invites faculty, students and staff to develop activities, events, research and teaching to enhance creative, innovative and entrepreneurial thinking.
Successful proposals will be supported through the new Innovative, Creative and Entrepreneurial Mindsets Fund.
The learning outcomes that we aspire to have all students graduate with and that this fund will help develop are:
- Development of critical thinking skills and good judgement/discernment
- Ability to identify problems and seek opportunities through discovery and design thinking
- Capacity to cultivate new ideas and solve problems
- Courage to take a risk and resilience to deal with failure
- Aptitude to move to action and take advantage of opportunities/create social and economic value
- Self-reflection and ability to learn from both mistakes and successes
- Understanding of alternative ways of organizing (e.g. cooperatives, collectives, nonprofits, social enterprises, for-profits, start-ups)
Call for Proposals
Proposals are invited from individual Saint Mary's faculty, students and staff as well as from Departments, Programs, Societies and groups of individuals. The primary applicant must be a member of the Saint Mary’s University community. Applicants will provide a detailed plan including a budget (normally expected to be in the range of $1,000 to $5,000 to a maximum of $10,000/per application) with expected outcomes and agree to share what they learned in a seminar, published article and/or workshop. Applicants are encouraged to be creative in their approach and to wisely use the money they apply for. The budget is not to be used for course releases or for curriculum development activities that are a normal part of faculty teaching responsibilities.
Possible projects include everything from design thinking workshops for staff and students across the university to pitch competitions for IP that can be commercialized or a community of practice using critical thinking to address wicked problems. Note that this not funding for a start-up.
Submission of Applications for Funding and Deadline
Applications for funding are to be submitted electronically to donna.filek@smu.ca and must be received by 4 p.m. on October 31, 2017.