Later this year, the first in a new series of Scholarly Communication Institutes will be held here in the Research Triangle and we are looking for proposals from diverse and creative teams of people who are interested in projects that have the potential to reshape scholarly communications.
Last year the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation funded a three-year project to continue the long-running Scholarly Communications Institute which has previously been held at the University of Virginia. Starting in November, the new SCI will be hosted by Duke in close collaborations with UNC Chapel Hill, NC State University, North Carolina Central University and the Triangle Research Libraries Network. This new iteration of the SCI will benefit, we believe, from the extraordinary depth and diversity of resources related to innovation in scholarly communications here in the Triangle, and it will also take on a new format, in which participants will have a major role in setting the agenda each year.
Starting this year — starting right now! — the SCI invites applications from working groups of 3 – 8 people that are organized around a project or problem that concerns scholarly communications. These working groups can and should be diverse, consisting of scholars, librarians, publishers, technologists and folks from outside academia (journalist? museums? non-profits?). We hope that proposals will be very creative about connections, and include people that would like to work together even if they have not previously been able to do so.
The SCI Advisory panel will select 3 to 5 of these working group proposals and cover the costs for those teams to travel to the Triangle and spend four days together in Chapel Hill in a setting that is part retreat, part seminar, part development sprint and part un-conference. We want these groups to work together and to interact. The groups will, we hope, jump-start their own projects and “cross-pollinate” ideas that will advance and challenge each others projects and discussions.
The theme for the 2014 SCI is Scholarship and the Crowd. It will be held November 9-13 at the Rizzo Center in Chapel Hill, NC. Proposals are due by March 24.
The goal of the SCI is not to schedule breakthroughs but create conditions that favor them. The Working Groups selected will set the agenda and define the deliverables. The Institute will offer the space , the environment and the network of peers to foster creative thinking, with the hope of both advancing the specific projects and also developing ideas and perspectives that can give those projects a broader potential to influence the landscape of publishing, digital humanities and other topics related to scholarly communications.
If you or someone you know might be interested in developing a proposal for this first Triangle-based SCI, you will find the call for proposals and an FAQ at trianglesci.org.