SUNY Academic Innovation Grants Programs

Please see the following message from the executive vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost, Dr. Melur K. “Ram” Ramasubramanian:

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to share the timeline and process for the 2025 Academic Innovation Grants, which combines resources allocated to the Innovative Instruction Technology Grants (IITG) and Open Educational Resources (OER) Impact grant programs. I ask that you review and broadly share this funding opportunity with your faculty and instructional support staff.

This year’s process builds on the success of last year’s two stage proposal process, which resulted in more multi-campus grants and a wider distribution of grants across all campus sectors. We are once again encouraging faculty and staff to connect beyond departmental and campus boundaries to pilot, share, and scale-up transformative teaching and learning practices. We specifically seek grants that support one or more of the Chancellor’s four pillars as well as our shared commitment for leading sustainable, impactful innovations that return value by multiple measures. Like last year, priority will also be given to proposals that focus on:
(1) optimizing artificial intelligence (AI) for teaching and learning, and/or
(2) expanding support for the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER).

The 2024 grants are available on the IITG/OER Impact Grants website for anyone who would like to see what was funded last year.

The two-stage proposal solicitation process is detailed on the IITG/OER Impact Grants website and summarized below:

• Stage One: Faculty and staff are invited to submit “ideas” for projects using the Ideation Submission Form. Those who submit ideas will be invited to join town hall style meetings (participation in one of the meetings is strongly recommended). The goal is to use these meetings to foster more cross-campus dialogue and enable multi-campus project teams to be formed around similar or complementary ideas.
• Stage Two: Those with ideas or shared goals coming out of the Ideation stage are invited to submit a Full Proposals. Applicants will need to create an account in the SUNY online grant management website to submit a full proposal.

The key dates are as follows:

• The Ideation Form will be available Tuesday, January 27th through Friday, February 14th
• Town Hall meetings will occur during the weeks of February 17th and February 24th
• The Full Proposal site opens week of March 3rd
• The Full Proposal deadline: Sunday, March 30th at 11:59pm.

Announcements of awards will be made during the 2025 SUNY Conference on Instruction and Technology (CIT) hosted by SUNY Oneonta in May.

As a reminder, recipients must follow state and campus procurement policies and will need to identify local campus administrative and procurement support if a project requires expenditures prior to funds distribution. As is also the tradition with these SUNY grant programs, outcomes must be openly shared under a Creative Commons license.

Additional information will be provided via the IITG/OER Impact Grant website, as well as through normal SUNY and FACT2 communication channels. In the interim, please do not hesitate to contact our team at iitgrants@suny.edu with any questions.

We look forward to reviewing your proposals!

Sincerely,

Ram

Melur K “Ram” Ramasubramanian
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
President, SUNY Research Foundation
The State University of New York