FI Fund FAQ 

Yes. The Centre for Asian Canadian Research (ACRE) is a new research Centre (approved in March 2022) committed to nurturing and supporting community engaged Asian Canadian scholarship and university-community relationship building. We endeavor to build projects, programs and initiatives that suit the diverse work and research contexts of faculty. The goal of this pilot is to offer a low-barrier funding program that ultimately builds Asian Canadian research communities of expertise on and off campus.

UBC faculty members in the social sciences, humanities and creative and performing arts are welcome to apply. We will prioritize members of historically, persistently, and systemically marginalized groups.

Successful applicants have two options:  

1. The Centre may transfer funds to your home department. In this case, you would be responsible with liaising with your departmental administrator to process expenditures appropriately. 
2. The Centre may help you manage the fund by helping you process reimbursements in Workday (for personal expenses such as conference fees, travel fees, etc.); supporting payments to community members/organisations; assisting with venue rental payments and other large expenditures.  

Option 1 may be more useful to applicants that require large expenditures, such as conference fees, travel (hotel flights), and/or salaried student appointments.

Option 2 may be more useful to applicants who need more event/community engagement support.

We invite you to let us know your preference on the application form. If your application is selected, we will reach out to confirm which option suits your project’s needs best.

Please refer to the priorities listed in the fund description page.

Funds can be used to support research, community engagement and/or teaching and learning activities. Examples of eligible costs for the FI Fund include, but are not limited to: honoraria for guest speakers, research-related travel expenses, publication-related support, student appointments to support funded activities. For a full list of eligible costs, please see the Eligible Costs section of the fund description page.  

We will support faculty who want to hire graduate students to assist with funded activities, but this specific fund is not meant to be “graduate research funding” as such. The ACRE team is in the process of designing a separate funding stream to support graduate students working in the field of Asian Canadian, Asian Migration studies and/or with Asian Canadian communities. More information will be announced in the new year.

Funds cannot be used to support UBC unit or community organization operational needs, or to cover costs related to equipment. Alcohol and alcohol related purchases are also prohibited. For more information and context, please see the UBC Financial Expenditure Guideline. If you have questions, you are more than welcome to contact the ACRE team.

Funding announcements will be made in January 2024.

Given the nature of this funding stream, applicants must use the funds by the end of the 2024-2025 fiscal year (March 31, 2025).

This is a low-barrier funding program; therefore, a formal report is not required. However, for storytelling purposes, we do request that faculty submit a brief paragraph summarizing the impact(s) of the project. We will offer several prompt questions to help you frame your project’s impact. While optional, we welcome the inclusion of photos and videos as part of your report summary. With your permission, written summaries and multimedia content may be used for promotional/storytelling purposes for ACRE.