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Research Funding at CREATE

CREATE’s research funding infrastructure is focused on promoting education, translation, and research that advances our mission to “make technology accessible, and to make the world accessible through technology.” Research funding includes seed funding, matching money, student minigrants, and translation minigrants.

Seed funding

Seed funding is meant to launch innovative ideas not yet funded.

Matching money

Matching money are intended for faculty who are working on accessibility-related research projects.

Student Minigrants

Student Minigrants are intended to encourage and support students in accessibility research, whether part of a course or independent research under the guidance of a faculty member.

Translation Minigrants

Translation minigrants are intended to fund new pilot initiatives, demonstration projects, or social ventures that lead to the translation of research products into deployable usable technologies or technology artifacts in real use.

Learn about more funding opportunities

CREATE also sometimes puts out internal calls for research proposals on specific topics, usually aligned with its major research initiatives. Be sure to check our Resources for Disabled Academics web page for more funding ideas and join our mailing list to receive announcements.

CREATE's icon of human with prosthetic arm holding a lightbulb

CREATE is calling for funding proposals as a part a cross-university effort to increase awareness of, and research in, the intersection of Race, Disability & Technology (RDT).

Learn how to submit an RDT Proposal for research

Funded research

Supporting urban accessibility work

Matched grant of $6,666
Jon Froehlich, PI

In 2020, CREATE matched a UW Global Innovation Fund (GIF) with $6,666. The proposal focused on supporting our urban accessibility work with Liga Peatonal—an NGO focused on pedestrian safety and accessibility in Latin America. In Mexico, 55% of school commuters and 23% of workers travel by foot or wheelchair; however, 44% of traffic-related deaths are pedestrian—often due to poor or non-existent pedestrian infrastructure.

Prior to funding, PI Froehlich and Liga Peatonal worked together to deploy Project Sidewalk into two initial areas in Mexico City and San Pedro Garza García. In a pre-funded pilot, over 700 users mapped 130.2 km of sidewalks and identified 20,126 sidewalk accessibility problems.

With GIF and CREATE support, they were able to expand our pilot to a third city La Piedad, Mexico. Now, nearly 3,000 users have participated in mapping and assessing over 2500 km of sidewalks in Mexico, resulting in 162k labels and 72k validations. This work resulted in a publication featured in the United Nations Habitat program and a paper entitled Sidewalk Accessibility in the US and Mexico: Policies, Tools, and a Preliminary Case Study published at a CSCW workshop on civic technology.

Postdoctoral Training in Physical Computing and Fabrication to Support Innovations for Community Living and Participation

Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training (AART) Center

Through the Advanced Rehabilitation Research Training (AART) Center, postdoctoral fellows are trained in harnessing advances in physical computing and fabrication as it relates to rehabilitation research. Selected postdoctoral fellows participate in a 12 or 24-month training program which builds their expertise in physical computing, fabrication, and disability studies. Current post doctoral trainees benefitting from this ARRT include: Momona Yamagami; Alexandra Portnova; and Maitraye Das.

CREATE also funds student research and translation

Education minigrants

Students may apply for CREATE education minigrants for accessibility-related research projects. Projects could be part of a course or be independent research under the guidance of a faculty member. One example of a good use of funding is to pay a participant in a research study who has a disability.

Translation grants

CREATE translation grants are awarded to fund new pilot initiatives, demonstration projects, or social ventures that lead to the translation of research products into deployable usable technologies or technology artifacts in real use.