The applicants should be undergraduate students or teams. Students are encouraged to form teams across schools, divisions, majors, and grades to apply for projects. The number of members in each team should be limited to 5, with no more than 2 project leaders.  The members of the project team must have a clear division of labor. Each student can only be responsible for one provincial-level Dachuang project during his/her study period, and cannot cross-apply between different projects at the same time.

Your application for the provincial-level project must:

• have total project costs and grant funding request of more than RMB ￥5,000 and less than RMB ￥50,000
• start between 1 September 2023 and 1 June 2024
• end by 31 April 2025 or 31 April 2026
• last between 1 and 2 Years

You must only include eligible project costs in your application.

Projects will be officially set up in June 2024. Your project start date will be reflected in your offer letter if you are successful.

Your eligibility will be restricted to institutional-level projects if you exceed the Minimal Financial Assistance limit.

If your project is a winner of the DKU Innovation Challenge, you have been accepted as an institutional-level Dachuang project and you will go directly to the final pitch session of the provincial-level project review. However, please remember to submit your revised proposal as a final review document at the time we specify.

You can use a previously submitted application (including DKU Innovation Challenge) to apply for Dachuang program.

You can make a maximum of 2 submissions to Dii with any given proposal. If Dii judges that your proposal is not materially different from your previous proposal, it will be counted towards this maximum.

If your application goes through to assessment and is unsuccessful, you can reapply with the same proposal once more.

We will not award you funding if you have:

• been previously funded by Dachuang/Dii
• failed to comply with grant terms and conditions
• an overdue quarterly/mid-term/final report

The Dachuang program is open to all disciplines and your proposal should demonstrate academic, theoretical, or practical significance. Projects should be innovative or have clear entrepreneurial educational outcomes, with well-defined research goals and methodologies. Topics can range from sub-projects within faculty research and technology development, to experimental projects in labs or internships, creative design projects, or practical industry-related challenges. Emphasis is placed on topics contributing to socio-economic development, encouraging innovative research in foundational theories and targeted applications, as well as interdisciplinary projects. Projects with potential for technological, commercial, or industrial applications are strongly supported. Additionally, there is a focus on sustaining innovative foundational and applied research, fostering cutting-edge scientific inquiry, disruptive technological innovations, and substantive entrepreneurial practices.

The Dachuang program is managed by a project system, which is divided into three types: Innovation Training Projects, Entrepreneurship Training Projects, and Entrepreneurship Practice Projects.

1. Innovation Training Project: Under the guidance of their mentors, undergraduate students or teams independently complete innovative research project design, research condition preparation, project implementation, research report writing, and achievement (academic) exchange.
2. Entrepreneurship Training Project: Under the guidance of mentors, undergraduate teams play one or more specific roles in the project implementation process, completing tasks such as preparing business plans, conducting feasibility studies, simulating business operations, and writing entrepreneurship reports.
3. Entrepreneurial Practice Project: Under the joint guidance of college mentors and industry mentors, student teams adopt the results of innovation and entrepreneurship training programs or innovative experiments to propose innovative products and services with market prospects, and carry out entrepreneurial practice activities based on them.

In DKU the project system is also divided into two categories: general projects and key projects (including projects in key support areas). Institutional key projects will be recommended for provincial projects, provincial key projects will be recommended for national projects, and so on.

We encourage you to view our MOOC – Innovation and Entrepreneurship Essentials available on Canvas before you start your application.

Before submitting, it is the lead applicant’s responsibility to make sure:

• that all the information provided in the application is correct
• your proposal meets the eligibility and scope criteria
• all sections of the application are marked as complete

The proposal must describe the complete research or entrepreneurial plan. The plan will be submitted to the DKU Innovation Incubator’s review committee. The proposal must not exceed 10 pages (approximately 5,000 words, including the cover page, figures, tables, and references.) and must conform to the DKU Dachuang submission template. Accepted proposals will be published in the DKU Innovation Gallery – a digital proceeding of the DKU Innovation Incubator.

For students who are applying for Dachuang as an Innovation Training Project, please download the proposal template from
https://prodduke.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/Dii/EX4RSwi8xdpCmw4D-_1Qu-IBjEeBVtN8I9Pcl4GoLiPnHA?e=tac4bx

For students who are applying for Dachuang as an Entrepreneurship Training/Practice Project, please download the proposal template from
https://prodduke.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/Dii/EVh6djNGmQJJuU_-wiXVPr0BfvCv4-Kpc_-OCj6BZreaPg?e=e4O3Xh

We have provided a format introduction for your reference:
https://prodduke.sharepoint.com/:w:/s/Dii/EX6KbcsVMNlOup8wZRq05i8BiZXtgru5Un3R545AOSiiTw?e=cnMrgp

Please submit your full proposal by clicking the “Submit Your Proposal” button on this page or through the Qualtrics link listed below by March 18, 2024.

https://duke.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_0qWAAOCIe1i6I9E

A proposal will be accepted ONLY through Qualtrics and be evaluated by the Dii review panel. Accept/reject notices will be emailed promptly. The selected teams will be invited to participate in the Dachuang 2024 Provincial Project Final Pitch.

We welcome and encourage applications from students of all backgrounds and are committed to making our application process accessible to everyone. This includes making reasonable adjustments, for people who have a disability or a long-term condition and face barriers applying to us.

You can contact us at any time to ask for guidance.

We recommend you contact us at least 10 working days before this application’s closing date to allow us to put the most suitable support in place. The support we can provide may be limited if you contact us close to the application deadline.