Before submitting a new seminar proposal, please take a moment to look at the listing of current seminars. If there is already another seminar on the subject you are proposing, please address this in your letter. It is possible to have multiple seminars in a particular field if the approach or subject matter differs enough from the existing seminar to qualify as a new seminar.

All seminars must include participants from more than one department, and from outside Columbia. Members (from Columbia), and associate members (from elsewhere), must have PhDs or equivalent expertise. Some seminars admit selected graduate students as guests; some do not.

Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis through Submittable and are reviewed by a committee.

The University Seminars reviews requests for subvention funding from seminar chairs, guest speakers, and rapporteurs who have presented their work in a seminar meeting. Subvention funding is provided to a publisher to facilitate the publication of a book or article. Requests can be submitted for work that has been accepted by a peer-reviewed academic publisher but is not yet published or in production.

Applications for publication subventions are reviewed twice a year. 

The deadlines for applications are September 15 and March 15.

TYPES OF FUNDING

The Leonard Hastings Schoff and Suzanne Levick Schoff Memorial Fund for indexing, translating, technical editing, illustrating, or other publication costs of articles or books  produced under the auspices of The University Seminars in the fields of economics, sociology, psychology, penology, or the behavioral sciences.

The Aaron Warner Fund supports the publication of articles or books that emerge from a University Seminar. These publications do not need to fall under a specific field. This fund is in honor of the social scientist Aaron Warner, who was Director of The University Seminars for decades, and whose devotion to music on the one hand, and to the world of physics at Columbia, on the other, carried him far beyond the social sciences. 

ELIGIBILITY 

Our Subvention Funds are open to seminar chairs, guest speakers, regular participants, and rapporteurs whose books or articles:

• are produced entirely as seminar projects (e.g., a conference or symposium) or were partly presented and discussed at a seminar meeting
• includes parts presented and discussed at a seminar meeting 
• are works clearly influenced by participation in a seminar group and meeting

The subvention funds may be used only for expenses related to publication such as indexing, translating, technical editing, illustrating, paying open access fees, or other publication costs. Subvention Funding cannot be used for administrative costs (i.e. staff salaries or office supplies). Applicants must provide a budget and must indicate what other sources of funding are available to them, noting additional sources of support. The University Seminars’ publication subventions are intended to help with costs that cannot be covered by publishers or by the requestors’  institutions.

GUIDELINES

The University Seminars Publication Committee considers the value of the proposed publication and its involvement with a seminar in comparison with other requests. Subvention funding requests are subject to the following priorities:

• publications produced entirely as a seminar's project, e.g., a conference or symposium.   
• publications by regular seminar participants, including chairs and co-chairs, of which some part was presented and discussed at a seminar meeting.       
• publications that include materials presented and discussed by a speaker at a seminar meeting. 
• publications by a seminar's rapporteur where the work was clearly influenced by participation in the seminar. 

The University Seminars will provide up to $3,000 for publication expenses. The publication committee determines the amount to be funded.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

After the proposal has been submitted, an email confirmation will be sent from Submittable, a non-CU, third party application. 

Please add notifications@email.submittable.com to your contact list to ensure you receive all communications regarding your application. 

The Committee will respond to all requests. You can check the status of your submission at any time through Submittable.   

THE BELO AWARD

The Belo Award aims to encourage participation in The University Seminars by emerging and independent scholars, as well as non-tenured professors. Awardees can use the funds for expenses related to attendance, including dependent or elder care and other incidentals. 

Applications for the Belo Award are accepted on a rolling basis and will be reviewed by a committee.  

For questions about this award, contact Susan Boynton: slb184@columbia.edu.  

Occasionally, a seminar’s central concerns involve scholars too distant for regular participation, or a seminar wants to engage a broader audience. On such occasions, seminars may request conference funding from The Seminars through a formal application process, with the understanding that funds are limited and that The University Seminars does not pay honoraria to conference speakers.

Seminar-supported conferences come from the work of a seminar and must be proposed by a chair or member of the seminar. Conferences may not be organized and run solely by graduate students or post-docs. 

Conference proposals are reviewed twice per year.

The deadlines for applications are September 15 and March 15. 

Organizers are encouraged to seek additional funding sources for costs not covered by The Seminars. Seminar-supported conferences come from the work of a seminar, its members, and chairs. Conferences may not be organized and run by graduate students or post-docs. The role of graduate students in conference organization and execution is limited to the part-time work.

After the proposal has been submitted, an email confirmation will be sent from Submittable, a non-CU, third party application. Please add notifications@email.submittable.com to your contact list to ensure you receive all communications regarding your application. 

While the Conference Committee makes every effort to review proposals in a timely manner, responses may take up to two months and, if necessary, the committee may ask for additional materials or clarifications. Submitters may edit a submission only at the request of the committee. 

The status of the proposal can be checked at any time by logging into Submittable. 

Guidelines are found in The University Seminars Administrative Portal.

Before you begin, please review the MINUTES section of The University Seminars Administrative Portal.