R Consortium grant applications due October 31

Since 2015, the R Consortium has funded projects of benefit to, and proposed by, the R community. Twice a year, the R Consortium Infrastructure Steering Committee reviews grant proposals and makes awards based on merit and funds available. (Those funds come, in turn, from the annual dues paid by R Consortium members.) If you'd like to propose a project of your own, the deadline for submission for the Fall 2018 Call for Proposals is October 31.

Not sure what kind of project might be approved? In general, the R Consortium grants fund projects in these categories:

• Creation of general infrastructure supporting R, like the R-hub project which provides build services for R package developers on every platform supported by R.
• Development of new R packages, like DBI for R which provides a general interface between R and databases. 
• Support for working groups to meet, discuss and plan new initiatives in the R community, like Certification for R developers.
• R community programs, like R Ladies.

A good way to get a sense of suitable projects is by browsing the list of previously-funded R Consortium projects, or by taking a look at the regular project reviews in the R Consortium blog, like this update posted earlier today.

And if you're not sure how to put a proposal together, Steph Locke has created a boilerplate R Consortium proposal as an R Markdown document you can clone from Github, along with a detailed set of instructions on how to complete it for your project idea.

So, what ideas do you have to make the R ecosystem better? A new package? A new working group? A new community initiative? If you need financial support to make that idea a reality, consider applying for an R Consortium project grant. You can find all the details at the link below.

R Consortium blog: Fall 2018: ISC Call for Proposals