The Explorer Challenge

About
For over a decade, the Explorer Challenge, originally known as the Strategic Innovation Fund, has supported collaborative and innovative ideas brought forward by the entire Marquette campus: staff, students and faculty. The unique nature of this competition was recognized by the University Economic Development Association with its Award of Excellence in Innovation in 2018. 

In 2024, The University Innovation Council (a cross-campus group of staff, students and faculty) developed an updated version of the Explorer Challenge. This year’s competition will follow that same outline. Those who are interested in the Explorer Challenge will submit a simple one-page proposal summary supplemented by a short pitch presentation that the Innovation Council will use to determine award recommendations. Details on the application process and support that is available to our campus innovation community to help develop Explorer Challenge ideas can be found below.

Explorer Challenge 2026

Submit an idea on the portal, even if you missed the January 30 due date! Applications (see below) are due March 25. A printable PDF version of this information can be found here. Information about past awards can be found here. View the most recent winners here.

SUBMIT YOUR IDEA TODAY!
The Explorer Challenge funds may be used for a wide variety of projects including: Developing new interdisciplinary research clusters, building community and industry partnerships, funding ideas that will help the university operate more effectively or efficiently, or other potentially high impact ideas that require seed funds to test concept or build momentum. Innovation can include adaptation of existing strategies to support Marquette in new ways as well as development of brand new ideas. Projects that are interdisciplinary and which have the potential for community partnership or impact are encouraged. Proposed projects should not be simple extensions of current research programs. 
  • Funding
  • Application Process
  • Guidelines
  • Timeline
  • Templates
  • IDEAS

The Explorer Challenge is supported by the generosity of donors to Marquette.  For the 2025-26 competition we anticipate two levels of funding: 

  • For projects ready to be fully implemented, funds of up to $25,000 will be available to be spent over a 2-3 year period.  As in the past, a sustainability plan will be needed for projects that plan to extend beyond the Explorer Challenge funding.  One or two awards at this level will be anticipated. 
  • For projects that need more planning or early-stage pilot activities, we will also have smaller (up to $5,000) awards available.  Recipients of these one-year awards will be expected to meet with Innovation Council members during their award period for feedback and advice and will be eligible to apply for a larger award in subsequent years.  Up to five smaller awards are anticipated. 

Think of an innovative project that would benefit the campus community; make sure it follows the guidelines. Once you have determined that you have a project to be considered, complete the following:

  1. Submit a preliminary idea online by completing this form.
    • Any Marquette student, faculty, or staff member can submit an idea! A summary of submitted topics will be made public. Please do not include any confidential details in your summary (especially if there may be intellectual property involved). 
  2. Attend the Explorer Challenge Innovation Sandpit event
    • The Innovation Sandpit is an opportunity for the campus community and those who submitted preliminary ideas to discuss their potential projects and create teams. It will be hosted by Innovation Council. There will be light refreshments. It will be scheduled for earaly February (see timeline).
  3. Attend the Explorer Challenge budget and project summary Workshop
    • The workshop will be focused on budget and project summary development. Attendance is not required, but it is highly encouraged. We will have 2 dates with the same content to accommodate class schedules. They will be facilitated by Mark Simonson (ORI Budget Director) and John Blum (ORI Grant Writer). These will be scheduled for March (see timeline).
  4. Take advantage of office hours hosted by Innovaton Council members
    • Office hours will be announced after the submission form closes. They are a chance to meet with Innovation Council members one-on-one to discuss project development and ask questions.
  5. Submit the final one-page project summary and slide-deck
    • One-page project summaries (including budget) and slide decks are required in order to participate in the final pitch event. You must have your application endorsed by your chair/dean/supervisor (for faculty and staff), or your faculty or staff sponsor (for students - students cannot spend funding on their own, therefore, need a sponsor). Applications/summaries and slide decks are due March 25, 2026.  Workshops, office hours, collaborating with your team, and following the guidelines will prepare you for the final pitch. 
  6. Present a pitch at the Explorer Challenge Pitch event
    • All teams/individuals who want to compete for funding must present at the pitch event. Pitches should be no longer than 8 minutes. Innovation Council members will serve as judges and will take time to ask questions after you present. Refreshments will be served. Winners will be announced by July 1, 2026. 

For the 2025-26 competition, applicants should submit projects that fit in at least one of these categories:

  • The creation of innovative new cross-disciplinary collaborations (including building new research teams). Note that research proposals should involve creation of new scholarly endeavors that involve development of new cross-disciplinary teams and not be simple extensions of current research programs.  
  • The creation of innovative pilot programs that support goals of Marquette’s strategic plan themes of Thriving Students, Healthy Campus, and Care for the World.  See www.marquette.edu/2031/ for more information on the Strategic Plan themes. 

The following are expected funding guidelines for the Explorer Challenge and should be explicitly stated in your summary /pitch:

  • Demonstrate to the reader that your project is innovative (not just a way to sustain existing programs). Innovation can include adaptation of existing strategies to support Marquette in new ways as well as development of brand new ideas. Articulate potential impact.
  • Write for a general audience.
  • Clearly define the problem or opportunity being addressed and the strategy used.
  • Represent a cross-campus collaborative effort, as appropriate to the project.
  • Have the potential to become financially sustainable if the project is expected to continue beyond the funding period.
  • Demonstrate the impact of the project on Marquette and the broader community, as appropriate.
  • Provide a set of realistic goals that can be achieved within a defined time period.

Thursday, December 4, 2025

Friday, January 30, 2026, 11:59 PM

  • Preliminary ideas DUE; online submission portal closes. 

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

  • Portal ideas made available to campus;
  • Office hours announced for Innovation Council to assist with project development

Week of February 9-13, 2026 (Exact Date/Time/Location TBD depending on participant schedules)

  • Explorer Challenge Innovation Sandpit Event
    • Opportunity for campus community to share project ideas, and build teams
    • Event will be facilitated by members of the University Innovation Council

Week of March 16-20, 2026 (Exact Date/Time/Location TBD depending on participant schedules)

  • Explorer Challenge Proposal Workshops to prepare for:
    • (a) pitch and accompanying one-page summary; and
    • (b) budget development

Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 5 PM

  • Final proposal one-pager, budget template, and pitch slide-decks (1-2 slides) DUE

Week of April 7-10, 2026 (Exact Date/Time/Location TBD depending on participant schedules)

  • Explorer Challenge pitches heard

One-page summary AND slide-deck required for pitch consideration.

Please download a copy of these templates. When finished, save as "lastname_explorerchallenge_summary" and "lastname_explorerchallenge_slides" then email to innovation@marquette.edu by Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 5 PM.

If you have further questions, please contact innovation@marquette.edu and CC sara.spragg@marquette.edu.

Below is a list of preliminary ideas submitted so far for the 2025-2026 Explorer Challenge. The following ideas will be discussed at the Innovation Sandpit on February 10 (1-2:30 PM, 707 Hub). If you are interested in an idea, please contact innovation@marquette.edu to be connected with the proposed project lead.

This project aims to develop a lightweight, edge-intelligent Digital Health Twin that runs on a smartphone and connects to Bluetooth medical devices to monitor vital signs in real time. By processing data such as heart rate or blood pressure directly on the device, it can deliver instant, personalized insights without relying on constant internet access, making it practical for people in low-resource or connectivity-limited settings. This has the potential to provide earlier warnings about health risks, reduce preventable emergencies, and expand access to digital health monitoring for vulnerable communities.
We are all susceptible to environmental health risks like exposure to lead, radon, asbestos, and other toxins; however, if we know that our homes or schools are at risk, we can do something about it. This project aims to build a tool that, given an address, gives a user a list of environmental health risks potentially associated with their home, along with information on mitigation methods.
Attorneys and law students are facing a mental health crisis, and many of those who suffer silently are men. A major cause of this is a lack of community and spaces for men to openly discuss their struggles. This project proposed that the law school launches a faculty-led confidential peer group for male attorneys and students to openly discuss stressors, depression, and substance use to normalize seeking community support. A women's group can be developed, but this project will be focused on fraternal rather than sororal camaraderie.
ED Pulse will use HCUP NEDS (with ICD-9/ICD-10 harmonization) to build an AI-enabled surveillance pipeline that detects and summarizes trends in youth substance-related emergency department visits. The project will generate near–real-time dashboards and interpretable alerts by age, geography, substance category, and co-occurring mental health conditions to support prevention and rapid public health response.
This project proposes to lease the space currently being used by The Brew to local or Marquette student entrepreneurs. The Brew locations represent prime real estate that could be used to help develop connections between Marquette and its community or to catalyze student leadership, in either case transforming Marquette coffee shops from Starbucks affiliates into incubators of self-empowerment and culture.
This project proposes the use of a faculty-curated, holographic AI professor to provide students with 24/7 access to course-specific academic support. Drawing exclusively from instructor-approved materials stored on a local server, this display is designed as an extension of instructor teaching rather than a replacement. Importantly, this proposal advances the initiative of the Thriving Students priority by focusing on a scalable student-centered educational resource that reduces barriers to engagement and promotes academic confidence.
This project proposes a student-led culinary innovation pilot that uses a small-scale food venture to test how intentional branding, aesthetics, and community-informed design influence customer engagement and entrepreneurial viability. The pilot will generate a replicable model for experiential learning, community partnership, and culturally responsive business development that Marquette can adapt and scale.
As data-driven technologies and digital platforms increasingly shape social life, institutions, and how decisions are made and power is exercised, students need structured ways to engage their ethical and human consequences. This project supports the collaborative development and piloting of an interdisciplinary minor in Data, Ethics & Human Flourishing, bringing together faculty from computing, the humanities, and applied disciplines to equip students with practical tools for ethical reflection, judgment, and discernment while advancing Marquette’s commitments to Thriving Students and Care for the World.
This project proposes an interdisciplinary partnership that will enhance resilience against age-related cognitive decline, often called ‘cognitive reserve’, by implementing a second-language acquisition intervention with older adults and documenting its cognitive and neural effects. Learning and thus speaking a second language has been shown to require complex cognitive control, activating and reinforcing the highest-level brain networks, which are also the networks most vulnerable to age-related decline. As the US population is rapidly aging, we will demonstrate that second-language programs can become a crucial tool for protecting cognition and independence into old age.
Humans are increasingly disconnected from community and from the natural world, reducing opportunities for a transformative relationship with our environment. Imagine a nature center revitalizing curiosity as a fully sustainable, living bed-and-breakfast where guests can stay alongside chirping tropical frogs, buzzing bee colonies, and swim in glowing bioluminescent algae pools. In response to this growing separation, the Rainforest Rick experience blends ecology, education, technology, and hospitality to create a 24-hour, multi-sensory urban third space that fosters genuine human connection and environmental stewardship through hands-on conservation with emphasis on cross discipline education.
This project idea is an app, it is a financial wellness platform designed for college students to reduce money stress and build smarter habits. It combines simple, friendly budgeting with micro lessons and a unique "talk to an associate" feature, where students can chat with a real or AI budget coach for personalized guidance. More than a tracking tool, it is a supportive, community-driven experience made for students learning financial independence.
This project examines how housing conditions, school communication practices, and access to healthcare shape educational and health outcomes for Rohingya and Burmese youth ages five to twenty-five in Milwaukee. In collaboration with community leaders and partners, the study uses qualitative interviews with caregivers and young adults to identify institutional processes, such as language access, transportation, and housing placement, that produce inequality. Findings will generate actionable, culturally grounded recommendations for schools, healthcare systems, and local agencies to reduce barriers and improve equitable support for refugee youth.
This project explores how hearing protection devices affect spoken language access and comprehension. As hearing protection devices become prevalent in society, especially among people with sensory sensitivities, it is important to understand how they affect access to language. Previous research has looked at the benefits of hearing protection devices, like improving behaviors and attention, but very limited studies have been conducted to show possible risks of these devices.
The Les Aspin Center is in the process of expanding the Kleczka Internship Program to include more project-based experiential learning. Instead of placing students in a semester-long traditional internship, the new program would contract with local governments for teams of students to complete needed research projects. Students would be compensated at a higher rate than most student employees, and projects would have a more flexible timeline (both shorter and longer than the traditional semester long model).
The College of Education will develop the "Partnership & Pipeline for Urban Educators" program, which will intentionally pair Marquette undergraduate education students with two Milwaukee Public Schools (MPS) throughout their educator preparation. The purpose is to address MPS's teacher shortage crisis in hard to staff areas (e.g. 53206 area) with (1) effective Marquette education graduates who embody Jesuit values and (2) support school improvement and transformation through faculty/staff professional development and research. By developing a partnership model where students, faculty, staff can build long-term relationships, we can leverage faculty expertise in powerful educational models (e.g. community schools, MKE Roots, restorative practices, justice-oriented pedagogies) to concretely impact MPS's most struggling schools - reflecting our commitment to care for our local community.
This project aims to expand and enhance the Marquette Advisor Academy to ensure all advisors (faculty and staff alike) feel confident, connected, and fully equipped to meet the advising expectations outlined in the Advisor Bulletin. By developing accessible, comprehensive, and collaboratively designed training modules, resources, and shared practices, the initiative seeks to help advisors feel prepared, supported, and able to identify themselves as “good advisors” who positively shape students’ academic journeys. Strengthening advisor readiness and consistency in this way will lead to a more seamless and holistic advising experience for students, ultimately supporting gains in retention, first-destination, and graduation rates.
Wisconsin has more falls-related deaths among older adults than any other state in the US. Falls Free WI has exciting resources in its Interactive Home Safety Challenge and associated resources for making homes safe, but the volume of changes to make can be overwhelming. We will engage with stakeholders to refine a program for home safety implementation leveraging freely available resources from Falls Free WI and our RCT-tested action planning software to bridge the gap from educational experience to action with a focus on reducing falls, EMS calls, and deaths.
Student Wellness at Marquette is seeking to enter a new stage of service where students will benefit from a professional wellness counselor. Student Wellness plans to partner with a faculty research lab to expand upon their action planning software with a focus on building web-integration for a campus referral system, and third-party integrations. This project will focus on software integrations, pilot-testing the feasibility of the campus referral system, and changes in self-reported student wellbeing.
SCALE: Social determinants & Computational Analytics using large datasets for Equity. The purpose of this project is to establish data access and analytics to support interdisciplinary scholarship examining social determinants of health. This project will provide secure computing access for working with purchased datasets, such as the Healthcare Cost and Utilization (HCUP) data, and shared methodological resources to support secondary analysis, qualitative data integration, and use of common data elements. Initial projects will explore econometric methods that examine discrimination, such as the Blinder–Oaxaca decomposition, as well as explore best practices for integrating quantitative and qualitative data in secondary analysis. Specifically, we intend to focus on gaining a better understanding of the mechanisms that contribute to documented health disparities, including those associated with gender, race/ethnicity, income, disability, and complex chronic conditions.
As conflict, dissent, and disagreement become increasingly complex, Marquette has seen a growing need for shared tools that help students engage one another with care, accountability, and understanding. Through this project, the Office of Student Development will establish a clear divisional foundation for student-to-student Conflict Education, equipping undergraduate, graduate, and professional students with practical strategies for navigating interpersonal conflict. Grounded in restorative practices, this work supports reflection, relationship repair, and growth, strengthening how Marquette cares for its community.
ClarityEd Hub transforms confusing IEP and 504 plans into clear, actionable guidance families can actually use. Our platform translates legal documents into plain language, clarifies rights and responsibilities, and guides families step-by-step to track services and collaborate with schools. By making parent participation and special education more accessible and equitable. ClarityEd Hub empowers families, prevents conflict and builds trust early, so they can feel confidence from day one.

News:

Explorer Challenge Stats

Faculty research ideas that could normally be supported by other mechanisms, such as the Summer Faculty Fellowship, Regular Research Grants, or Way Klingler Research Awards, will typically not be competitive for funding through the Explorer Challenge. Academic program development may be eligible but the Provost’s Program Incubator may be a more appropriate source for some of these ideas. Students looking to launch entrepreneurial ventures should also explore the resources of the 707 Hub for other funding and support opportunities.
  • Proposals should not include supplemental undergraduate financial aid. 
  • Please send questions about the fund to innovation@marquette.edu.

Explorer Challenge Report

Read about the success of the Explorer Challenge over the past years in our published report.