BINDURA UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE EDUCATION
VICE CHANCELLOR’S CREATIVITY AND INNOVATION GRANT FOR STUDENTS
CALL FOR PROPOSALS-2015
Deadline: 29 May 2015
Preamble
Bindura University of Science Education is announcing the Vice Chancellor’s Creativity and Innovation Grant for Students intended for undergraduate and post graduate students to carry out innovative, creative, catalytic and ground breaking research with a high degree of novelty. Creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. It is characterised by the ability to perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, then producing. Innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product, service or process that creates value for business, government or society. An easy-to-use definition of creativity is that it is “A process that results in a novel work that is accepted as useful by a significant group of people at some point in time.” Innovation builds on this definition as, “Implementing something new that adds value or quantifiable gain, which requires many skill sets, usually a team.” Successful innovations are those that result in improvements in efficiency, effectiveness, quality or social outcomes/impacts.
Objectives of the Vice Chancellor’s Creativity and Innovation Grant for Students
The Vice Chancellor’s Creativity and Innovation Grant for Students is aimed at providing an opportunity to creative and innovative students to develop work. This competitive grant is meant to enhance students’ talent including their creative and innovative capacities at an early stage in their study and to prepare them for a productive career in research and development.
Eligibility
All students registered with Bindura University of Science Education are eligible for the grant. Grantees will, however, have to carry out the work under a mentor who should be a member of the academic staff or under supervision of the Research and Post Graduate Centre.
Grant Amount
Successful proposals may be awarded a maximum of $5, 000. Projects which demonstrate high impact on solving socio-economic challenges may be renewed subject to approval by the Vice Chancellor’s Creativity and Innovation Grant for Students Committee.
Application Procedures
1. There shall be a call for grant applications in March and September every year.
Undergraduate students shall apply directly for funding. The Guidelines and Application form (RB9a) are downloadable from the RPGC Webpage. They can also be collected from the Research and Post-graduate Centre.
2. The applications are authorised by the Vice Chancellor’s Creativity and Innovation Grant for Students Committee. The Committee will be chaired by the Vice Chancellor.
3. The RPGC shall be responsible for administering the grant.
4. The mentor shall be responsible for accounting for funds through the usual laid down procedures.
5. The proposed research should be carried out and completed normally within one year and during the year the Grant was awarded. Where more time is required the Grantee should apply for extension citing genuine reasons for the extension.
6. Immediately after approval of the Vice Chancellor’s Creativity and Innovation Grant for Students project, the innovation shall be registered with the Institution to protect the Intellectual Property Rights of the student.
Interested Students are requested to submit completed applications forms with detailed budgets to the Admin Assistant at the Research and Postgraduate centre in person or mail to . After mailing, please confirm that the proposal has been received. Deadline for submission of the proposals is 29 May 2015.
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