Making Action Possible Dashboard White Paper Grants

Call for Proposals

The Economic and Business Research Center in the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management is pleased to announce a call for proposals for Making Action Possible (MAP) Dashboard White Paper grants. The funding will be $7,500 per grant. Proposals are welcome from all University of Arizona faculty.  

The Making Action Possible Dashboard (mapazdashboard.arizona.edu) stems from a partnership between the Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, Pima Association of Governments, Southern Arizona Leadership Council, Sun Corridor Inc., and the University of Arizona. The Dashboard website is intended to provide the Southern Arizona community with a trusted source of information on 36 social and economic indicators that the community can use to measure progress and inspire action.

As part of this effort, the Making Action Possible Dashboard Advisory Board seeks proposals from University of Arizona faculty to prepare white papers on topics relevant to one of the six categories currently featured on the website: 1) Economy, 2) Education, 3) Health and Social Well‐Being, 4) Infrastructure, 5) Quality of Place, and 6) Workforce and Demographics.  White papers are expected to provide residents of Southern Arizona with insight into critical social and economic issues from an academic perspective.  

Previously funded white papers have addressed topics including housing, poverty, food security, the economic impact of extreme weather events, homelessness, early‐childhood education, and rainwater capture, among others. Published white papers on a variety of topics are available on the MAP Dashboard website. Proposals relating to the impact of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on Tucson would be especially welcome. Proposals to simply add additional indicators to the Dashboard will not be funded.

White papers should clearly explain the issue under consideration, explain and use data to describe the issue, offer insight about how to deal with problems/opportunities identified, and relate the conclusions to Southern Arizona. 

White papers should be submitted in Microsoft Word, between 7,500‐10,000 words in length, have consistent formatting with a title page, table of contents, and a short Executive Summary. Supporting data for charts, tables, and maps must be provided in a separate Microsoft Excel file.  White papers should include citations to relevant academic literature. Completed white papers will be published on 2 the Making Action Possible Dashboard website and author(s) will be expected to respond to press inquiries about the research and to present their results at a Dashboard meeting or webinar.

Guidelines for submitting proposals are as follows:

1. All University of Arizona faculty are eligible.
2. Preference will be given to proposals that include students as co‐authors, but at least one author must be a University of Arizona faculty member.
3. Application should be in the form of a single‐spaced memo of three pages or less.
4. The application should clearly motivate the research, explain the research approach and data, and provide a timeline to complete the research. The application should clearly state the connection of the proposed white paper to Southern Arizona. 
5. Proposals should include a plan/budget for the author(s) to seek one written faculty peer review of the completed white paper. The peer review, along with the author(s) responses, should be delivered with the completed paper.
6. A current CV should also be included with the application. In the case of a joint project, a current CV should be included for all co‐authors.  
7. Questions should be e‐mailed to George Hammond, director of the Economic and Business Research Center at ghammond@eller.arizona.edu
8. Making Action Possible Dashboard white paper proposals should be e‐mailed to George Hammond, director of the Economic and Business Research Center, ghammond.eller.arizona.edu by April 22, 2022. 
9. Proposals will be reviewed by the Making Action Possible Dashboard Advisory Board. The Board will make the final funding decision. Announcements of awards will be made by May 2, 2022.
10. Completion dates are negotiable, but preference will be given to those that can be finished by December 31, 2022.
11. Completed draft white papers will be submitted to the Board for review, in MS‐Word, formatted with a title page, table of contents, etc. Supporting data for charts, tables, and maps must be provided in a separate MS‐Excel file. The submission will include one faculty peer review, along with the author(s) responses.