Rural Research Engagement and Advancement Fund (RREAF)
Rural Research Engagement and Advancement Fund
The Rural Research Engagement and Advancement Fund (RREAF) is a new internal seed funding program for community-campus partnerships serving rural North Carolina. RREAF directly supports several of the strategic initiatives described in Carolina Next, and is a step toward addressing the critical need for research partnership support for community-engaged faculty and staff.
2024 applications are closed.
Up to $15K per Award
2024 Award Recipients
ECUIPPing Warren County Youth for EMPACT
- Rural County Served: Warren
- Community-Campus Partners: Amanda Northcross, Michael Fisher and Terry Alston Jones
- Empowers youth with knowledge and resources to become protectors of environmental quality in their community.
Helping Rural Pharmacists Overcome Buprenorphine Dispensing Barriers
- Rural Counties Served: Martin and Pender
- Community-Campus Partners: Delesha Carpenter, Bayla Ostrach, Ashley Leggett and Elizabeth Locklear
- Provides two rural pharmacies with tailored, evidence-based technical assistance and support to help overcome buprenorphine dispensing barriers.
Supporting Data Capture and Storytelling of Rural “Our State, Our Work” Teams
- Rural Counties Served: Jackson, Macon, Swain, Graham, Clay, Cherokee, Lincoln, Cabarrus, Caswell, Rockingham, Surry, Yadkin, Bladen, Columbus, Carteret, Duplin, Greene, Jones, Lenoir, Pamlico, Wilson, Beaufort, Bertie, Hertford and Martin
- Community-Campus Partners: Abigail Holdsclaw, Anita-Brown Graham, Jasmine Johnson, Marry Parry, Chelsea Brock, Michael Welker and Babara Steele
- Provide rural Our State, Our Work Program Managers and their teams the capacity and incentive to continue to track, input, and report their Opportunity Youth reach data throughout 2024.
Through the Lens of Recovery: Photovoice Initiative for Healing in Robeson County
- Rural County Served: Robeson
- Community-Campus Partners: Alexandra Lightfoot, Robyn Jordan and Tony Locklear
- Helps participants navigate their complex emotions and cultivate empathy, understanding, and a shared commitment to healing and mutual support, as well as generate new, community-driven ideas to address the impacts of addiction.
Unheard Voices: Supporting the Transition to Adulthood for Foster Youth in Duplin County
- Rural Counties Served: Duplin and Sampson
- Community-Campus Partners: Molly De Marco, Gabriella Statia, Earlean Rivers and Brett Sheppard
- Provides training and guidance in navigating the transition to the next stages of life, as well as a space for children in foster care to share their experiences and aspirations for their future
Whole Robeson Together
- Rural County Served: Robeson
- Community-Campus Partners: Sarah E. Bledsoe, Anna Fetter, Brittany Gordon, Erica Little and April Oxendine
- Develops and implements community-based interventions to address gaps in rural maternal mental health services.
Community-Academic Partnerships for Farmworkers Health
- Rural Counties Served: Bladen, Duplin, Greene, Jones, Lenoir and Sampson
- Community-Campus Partners: Laura Villa Torres, Melissa Castillo, and NC FIELD
- Increases their community partners’ capacity to address the environmental exposures and health issues that farmworkers experience through a co-developed joint research agenda.
Co-Creating Culturally Responsive Instructional Tools for Early Childhood Teacher Educators
- Rural Counties Served: Robeson
- Community-Campus Partners: Chih ing Lim, Camille Catlett, Jessica Amsbary, & Hsiu-wen Yang, Robeson Community College, Robeson County Partnership for Children, the Lumbee Tribe of NC, and UNC Pembroke
- Develops culturally responsive instructional materials for preparing current and future early childhood educators (ECEs) to more authentically support the rural children and families that they serve.
Enhancing Environmental Justice Leadership & Capacity
- Rural County Served: Caswell
- Community-Campus Partners: Courtney Woods, Lindsay Savelli, and Anderson Community Group
- Works with the Anderson Community Environmental Justice Group (ACE) to create evaluation tools to assess the success of their water quality testing-related projects.
HPV Vaccination in Lumbee Youth
- Rural Counties Served: Robeson
- Community-Campus Partners: Ronny A. Bell, Children’s Health of Carolina (CHC), the Lumbee Tribe of NC
- Study designed to assess barriers and facilitators of HPV vaccination among parents of Lumbee youth and their care providers in Robeson County.
Strengthening the Nash and Edgecombe Youth Leadership Development Program
- Rural Counties Served: Edgecombe and Nash
- Lead Community-Campus Partner: Leah Frerichs, Samuel Baxter, Mysha Wynn, Melvin Jackson, Kim Evans, Chauronda Morrison, Project GRACE, OIC and PRIME Collective
- Provides summer internships to high school youth to map and understand strengths in their rural communities.
Call for Applications
RREAF 2024 Call for Applications (click to expand)
The Rural Research Engagement and Advancement Fund (RREAF) is co-offered by UNC Rural and UNC Research and promotes community-academic partnerships based in rural North Carolina, supporting a wide range of engagement endeavors, including but not limited to:
- Research
- Technical assistance
- Community leadership development
- Capacity building
- Innovative internships
- Service-learning projects
- Collaborative programs
RREAF is part of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s strategic plan and UNC Research’s campus-wide pilot funding portfolio, furthering the University’s pre-eminence as a national and world-renowned leader in foundational research, creative practice, and the translation of research into social settings. This program aims to support a range of sustainable rural community-academic engagement efforts to encourage creativity, community-led goal setting, and meaningful partnerships to broaden UNC-Chapel Hill’s scope of “rural engagement” and capture learning as the University continues in its mission to serve North Carolina more effectively, particularly rural areas. Award recipients and their community partners will be encouraged but not required to participate in engaged scholarship workshops, trainings, and events offered by UNC Rural, UNC Research, or other university partners. In addition, award recipients may be given the opportunity to partner with university personnel to grow pilot projects into sustainable programs.
Rural Research Engagement and Advancement (RREAF) Eligibility
Funds will provide support to projects led by individuals or teams of UNC faculty or staff who are working in collaboration with communities in rural North Carolina (see defined rural areas here).
RREAF Funding
Awards will range from $10,000 to $15,000, to be used within one full year from the date of award. Award recipients will be notified in March 2024 and the anticipated start date is April 1, 2024.
How To Apply
Faculty of any rank or leadership staff of UNC centers, institutes, or projects may submit up to two-page project descriptions that describe:
- Place, project, and relevance to the State and community
- Listing of key local community partners and brief history of community-academic partnership
- Plans to evaluate performance
- Any major goals for use of funding along with potential future project directions.
- Brief financial narrative. Funding for this program may include participation of third parties, contingent upon normal subaward/subrecipient.
- Accompanying letter of support from community collaborators (at least one letter per project should be included but all current and identified community partners should be listed in project description).
To be considered, please return these materials in PDF format by 11:59 PM on January 31, 2024 to UNC Rural.
Review & Evaluation Criteria
UNC Rural and ORD will manage and provide guidance and oversight of the review process including selection of a panel who will review and rank all proposals on the following:
- Community impact
- Demonstrated or potential community-campus partnership
- Demonstrated ambition or intellectual promise
- Project design and feasibility
- If applicable, the likelihood that the project will position an applicant for external funding
Terms & Conditions of Award
- Research involving human subjects, such as surveys, or other compliance issues must be reviewed in accordance with the University’s policies. Once approved, copies of approval letters must be submitted to UNC Rural. An award is tentative until all compliance approvals have been obtained.
- The award period is 1 year. No-cost extensions are allowable with proper justification and approval from the RREAF team. Unexpended funds will revert to UNC Rural and ORD.
- Internal grant funds cannot generally be used for payment of costs incurred prior to the date of the award. Special cases must be approved prior to applying and will only be granted for costs incurred up to 90 days prior to being awarded.
- All expenditures, including procurement of supplies and travel authorizations, must adhere to general policies of the University.
- A final report is due to UNC Rural at the project’s conclusion. This report should be submitted at the end of the grant period, at the end of any extension granted, or prior to departure if the investigator should leave the University.
Acknowledgements
The publication of the results of research projects supported by a grant from the RREAF should carry a printed acknowledgment of financial assistance from UNC Research and UNC Rural. ORD and UNC Rural should receive a single copy of each such publication.
RREAF Questions
For all questions related to this program, please contact UNC Rural using the button below.