T3: Announcing Round 4

Sent on behalf of Dr. Mark A. Barteau, Vice President for Research

I am pleased to announce Round 4 of the Texas A&M Triads for Transformation (T3) program, aimed at fostering interdisciplinary collaborations among faculty teams of three (Triads). T3 is one component of the ten-year $100 million President’s Excellence Fund to support faculty in fostering the creation of interdisciplinary teams to develop long-term research and scholarship collaborations. The first three rounds of the T3 program provided funding for 300 projects of $30,000 each, as well as $2,000 to each project requesting to support the participation of undergraduate students.

Round 4 will follow the same general guidelines and process of Round 3. Beginning on October 1, 2020, projects can be entered through the web-based interface at t3.tamu.edu. Tenured or tenure-track faculty are invited to form interdisciplinary research groups of three members each (Triads). These Triads will have 12-24 months to accomplish their proposed project. The three members of each Triad must come from at least two separate Texas A&M colleges, schools or campuses. Faculty who were funded under Round 3 will not be eligible for funding under Round 4. All Round 3 projects that were not chosen for funding were archived and their corresponding Triads are considered dissolved. However, faculty can unarchive their projects and re-form their previous Round 3 Triads by re-posting the project and inviting participants.

T3 is not intended to provide faculty salaries, nor is it intended for research and scholarship collaborations that are currently or previously funded. As in previous rounds, each faculty member may join only one Triad in Round 4. The project-posting period will take place from October 1, 2020, to midnight, November 5, 2020, after which the Triad-forming period will begin. Faculty members will have from November 6, 2020, to December 11, 2020, to identify and invite other faculty members to form a Triad for their proposed project. The same random selection processes as in previous rounds will be followed. Triads that include at least one assistant professor will have a higher chance of being funded as the first 50 randomly funded projects will be drawn from the subset of projects including an assistant professor; the other 50 will be chosen randomly from the entire remaining pool. Funded projects will be announced the week of December 14, 2020, and funds provided in January 2021. After the funded Triads have been identified, project owners will need to provide a short description of their project for public posting, the role of each investigator, and a preliminary budget. Funded Triads will report annually on outcomes such as extramural funding, recognition and dissemination and will agree to present their project at a future President’s Excellence Fund Symposium.

As a University with a mission to engage in discovery, Texas A&M is pleased to make these funds available to support your research. We look forward to the formation of your Triads and to the results they produce. For additional information, please go to t3.tamu.edu.