CILMAR Seed Grant Program

Purdue University’s Center for Intercultural Learning, Mentorship, Assessment and Research  is pleased to invite applications for funding to support intercultural assessment and research during the 2025-2026 academic year. This Seed Grant program supports faculty, staff and graduate students who wish to engage in the assessment of intercultural learning outcomes, conduct studies of intercultural competency development, and/or generate new intercultural theoretical development, but lack the resources to do so.  

Grant Amount: Up to $5000 
Call for 2025-2026 is OPEN

Review process

In the review process, we will prioritize applications that will:

  • Conduct research or assessment
  • Present a clear plan for intercultural assessment or research
  • Connect work explicitly to the CILMAR vision
  • Demonstrate significant impact at Purdue

Please note that travel is an allowable but low priority budget item for CILMAR seed grants; travel necessary for data collection will be more persuasive than travel to disseminate findings. The number and amount of awards will vary dependent upon requests for support and available funding.

Expectations

CILMAR Seed Grant recipients will be expected to:

  • Utilize intentional, reflective experiential/active learning pedagogies of engagement with cultural differences
  • Implement one or more of the following with Purdue students, faculty or staff:
    • Formative assessment of the attitudes, knowledge, skills or behavior of intercultural competence or related constructs (e.g., global citizenship, cultural intelligence, intercultural communication/interaction, etc.)
    • Program evaluation of an intercultural learning intervention in a course, study abroad or virtual exchange program, co-curricular program, diverse research team, etc.
    • Experiments, ethnography, or other common quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods studies that develop cultural/intercultural understandings or theories
    • Validation of new intercultural scales or inventories
  • Serve as a mentor to faculty and staff in the Purdue community interested in intercultural teaching and learning scholarship by participating in CILMAR writing groups, training seminars, and communities of practice
  • Pursue appropriate dissemination outlets for their projects in peer-reviewed academic conferences and journals

Application

Applicants should be employed and/or pursuing a course of study at Purdue University’s West Lafayette campus during the 2025-2026 academic year.

*Statewide Polytechnic and Purdue Indianapolis faculty are eligible. 

Please use the proposal template to complete the application. Submit the completed proposal, CV and endorsement email here by Friday, March 3rd, 2025. 

For more information, please contact cilmar@purdue.edu.

Next Steps 

  • CILMAR will make a public announcement on social media in April 2025.
  • At the end of the project you will be required to submit a white paper and a recorded video.

Note: Submit a white paper and video-recorded presentation of findings from the funded project to be published on the Intercultural Learning Hub by April 2026. The template for white papers can be found here. The video needs to be uploaded using Kaltura only; please watch this video for instructions.

SEED GRANT RECIPIENTS

Alejandra Magana, Purdue Polytechnic Institute, $4000, research focusing on a pedagogical approach to promote students' self-awareness.

Zhixu (Rick) Yang and Franki Y.H. Kung, College of Health and Human Sciences. $2000, mixed methods study on the experiences of Asians in the US workforce. 

Goals: Learning Outcomes and Evidence

Per the recommendations of the National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) Transparency Framework and the NILOA Excellence in Assessment Standards, we provide the goals for each program offered through CILMAR.

75% of Seed Grant recipients will demonstrate generation of creative and innovative new knowledge relevant to intercultural competence. Each Seed Grant recipient will complete one white paper, one video presentation, and one conference presentation or journal article. These will be assessed, as categorized by the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Creative Thinking VALUE Rubric, for innovative thinking and for connecting/synthesizing/transforming. In this baseline year of data-analysis for creative quality, the goal will be 75% at level three (high milestone) or above on both items.

Updated February 22, 2025