One of the ways that we enact the WFI’s mission — communication as central to the creation of positive social change — is through the funding of research grants. These awards support the projects of Communication scholars and practitioners at Villanova University and across the world, projects examining communication, its impact on the world around us and its ability to create social change and social justice. We hope, through these grants, to help support the kinds of communication-focused research needed to engage the complexities of social change and social justice.

There are currently two types of funding opportunities available to communication scholars and practitioners through the WFI.

Grants to Support Innovative Scholarly Research

Each year, the WFI provides funds to support research conducted by scholars at Villanova and institutions across the world. Although we do not limit our grants to a specific methodological orientation or subdisciplinary focus, all projects supported by the WFI have two things in common: they make communication the primary, and not secondary, focus, and they engage communication in terms of its impact on the world around us, its ability to create social change. The funds awarded can be applied to the hiring of graduate assistants, acquisition of resources, travel, and/or any other appropriate research related expenses. All submitted proposals will be judged on the basis of quality, originality, and fit with the mission of The Waterhouse Family Institute.

Proposals are due each year on May 1; funds will be available beginning in early June.

For 2012/13, the WFI awarded six research grants, to support projects from Communication scholars working across the globe. For a more detailed description of the 2012/13 Grant Recipients, click here.

Other past grant recipients have included: Drs. Heidi Rose and Maurice Hall (Villanova University), for their project Culture, Performance and the Transcendent Body: The Libratory Poetics of Post-Colonial Identity Negotiation in Jamaica” (2011); Dr. Stephen W. Littlejohn (Member of the Board and Associate, CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution), for his project “CMM and Cosmopolitan Social Worlds: An Applied Study of Future Communication Scenarios” (2011); Dr. Emory Woodard (Villanova University), for his study of YouTube as a vehicle for social justice (2010).

CMM/WFI/ISI Fellow Awards

In addition to sponsoring research grants, the WFI is pleased to be collaborating with the CMM Institute for Personal and Social Evolution and the Institute for Social Innovation at Fielding Graduate University. Each year, beginning in 2011, our institutes co-sponsor a Fellow Awards Program, recognizing outstanding communication scholars and/or practitioners for projects that demonstrate the power of communication to make better social worlds.

A Fellow is a distinguished scholar and/or practitioner who is recognized for 1) demonstrating a unique understanding of what it means to take and apply a “communication perspective” and 2) finding creative and impactful ways of using a “communication perspective” to address real-world challenges. The number and nature of these awards varies each year, and the three sponsoring institutes rotate as hosts for the awards ceremony.

For 2011/12, Fellows were awarded for outstanding projects in five different categories. For more details on the 2011/12 CMM/WFI/ISI Fellows, click here.

These inaugural awardees were recognized as part of the Hearts and Minds International Film Festival, an event hosted by the WFI at Villanova University on April 13-14, 2012.

The application deadline for 2012/2013 Fellow awards has passed. However, the Fellows will be announced in early 2013, and will be awarded at a ceremony hosted by Fielding Graduate University. More details will be announced here—keep checking back!