Apply for the Gambrell Faculty Fellowship

August 28, 2026
Categories: General News

The Charlotte Urban Institute is now accepting applications for the 2026-27 Gambrell Faculty Fellowship program. 

With generous support from The Gambrell Foundation, the Institute will provide grants up to $25,000 each for six research or creative projects related to quality of life in the Charlotte region.

The fellowship is open to diverse methods including:

  • Original qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods research
  • Original art or performance
  • New and innovative uses of existing data, including administrative data held in the Charlotte Regional Data Trust and publicly available data.
  • Thought work that develops theory or synthesizes research and thinking at new intersections and could lead to research, a book or art/performance.

Fellows will join a growing group of faculty who contribute to finding solutions to our community’s most pressing challenges. The results of this work could contribute to a Charlotte region that works for everyone.

[Find the full program details and guidelines here. The application materials can be downloaded as a Microsoft Word document.]

Important details of the fellowship and application are as follows:

  • The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. on Friday, October 9, 2026
  • The fellowships will fund short-term research projects (up to 18 months)
  • UNC Charlotte full-time faculty with the title of assistant professor or higher whose job description includes professional expectations for research may apply for this fellowship
  • Awardees will be notified by December 7, 2026 and the grant period will begin January 15, 2027

If you have questions about this process, contact Elaine Jacobs or Liz Morrell at uiresearch@charlotte.edu.

Since 2019, the Gambrell Faculty Fellowship has named 59 unique faculty fellows and supported 36 research and creative projects that represent seven UNC Charlotte colleges, including Arts + Architecture; Business, Computing & Informatics; Education; Engineering; Health & Human Services; Humanities & Earth and Social Sciences; and more than 20 academic disciplines.

Read about previous Faculty Fellows here.