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Deadlines for some Dissertation Grant Programs

(note: the deadline listed is the deadline for arrival at the sponsoring organization. Local UT deadlines may apply, and they may be at least two weeks earlier. PLAN AHEAD)

Date Grants
August 1:
  • Ethics & Values Studies, NSF
  • Science and Technology Studies, NSF
August 15:
  • Decision, Risk, & Management Science, NSF
  • Economics, NSF
  • Law and Social Sciences, NSF
  • Political Science, NSF
September 1:
  • Doctoral Dissertation Awards for Arthritis Health Professionals, "functional, behavioral, nutritional, occupational, epidemiological aspects of arthritic patient care and management"
September 13:
  • American Psychological Association dissertation awards. http://www.apa.org/science/diss.html
October 1:
  • American Lung Association, Behavioral Science Dissertation Grants, US citizens and permanent residents "social, behavioral, epidemiological, psychological, and educational aspects of lung health"
  • Japan Dissertation Workshop. For dissertation writers prior to and following fieldwork in Japan. Administered by SSRC.
October 11:
  • Environmental biology, NSF
  • Integrative biology & neuroscience, NSF
  • Biological Instrumentation Resources, NSF
October 15:
  • Sociology, NSF
  • Health Care Finance Administration, Dissertation Fellowship Grants for social science students investigating health care financing and delivery issues.
October 30:
  • Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Awards for study abroad; emphasis on economics, geography, or sociology. A wide range of geographic areas (not including Western Europe) qualifies. NB: Campus deadline will be much earlier.
October 31:
  • DAAD-Fulbright: dissertation research in Germany, US citizens
November 1:
  • Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowships, for dissertation work at Dumbarton Oaks in Byzantine Studies, Pre-Columbian Studies, and Landscape Architecture
  • Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowships for Minorities: behavioral and social sciences, humanities, engineering, mathematics, physical sciences, biological sciences, some interdisciplinary areas; US Citizens only from one of six underrepresented groups
  • Getty Center for Education in the Arts dissertation fellowships for proposals that explore the theory and/or practice of discipline/based art education.
  • American Council of Learned Societies, Fellowships for East European Studies, dissertation research on East Europe in the social Science and humanities, but intended to support work undertaken primarily outside Eastern Europe
  • SSRC Dissertation Research Fellowships for Underrepresented Disciplines in Middle Eastern Studies. For US citizens; social sciences, philosophy, fine arts.
  • SSRC Dissertation Fellowships for social science and humanities dissertations r acquiring field work in the Middle East. U.S. citizens.
  • SSRC Dissertation Fellowships for South Asia.
November 15:
  • Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, research on health care systems and the cost, quality, and impact of health care services.
  • American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, women, all fields except engineering, US citizens or permanent residents only
  • American Association of University Women Educational Foundation, Selected Professional Fellowships, women, engineering, US citizens or permanent residents only
  • Henry Luce Foundation/ACLS Dissertation Fellowship Program in American Art, for art history of the United States in any period
  • SSRC-MacArthur Dissertation Fellowships on Peace and Security in a Changing World. Provide funding for candidate to seek additional training.
December 1:
  • Geography and Regional Science, NSF
  • SSRC Dissertation Fellowships for Soviet Union and Its Successor States. For students in any social science or humanities discipline.
December 13
  • SSRC Dissertation Fellowship in Sexuality Research. For students in social or behavioral science or a public health field.
January 10
  • International Migration dissertation fellowships, SSRC, citizens, permanent residents, and foreign students matriculated in social science degree programs
  • Minority Summer Dissertation Workshop, SSRC, for minority group students with a preliminary interest in dissertation research on international migration
January 15:
  • Decision, Risk, & Management Science, NSF
  • Economics, NSF
  • Law and Social Sciences, NSF
  • Political Science, NSF
February 1:
  • Ethics & Values Studies, NSF
  • Science and Technology Studies, NSF
  • Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies, social science and cultural fields, some aspect of German or European affairs. Citizens and permanent residents. Administered by SSRC.
February 15:
  • IREX developmental fellowships for field research in Azarbaijan, the Baltics, Eastern Europe, Georgia, CIS; preference for archaeology, anthropology, business, economics, geography, demography, law, musicology, political science, psychology, and sociology; US citizens and permanent residents.
March 1:
  • American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education, pharmaceutical sciences, US citizens only
March 15:
  • Lerner-Gray Fund for Marine Research, American Museum of Natural History, fields related to marine zoology, except botany
May 1:
  • Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, research on health care systems and the cost, quality, and impact of health care services. at any time:
  • Archaeology and Archaeometry, NSF
  • Cultural Anthropology, NSF
  • Physical Anthropology, NSF
  • Linguistics, NSF
   
Various deadlines: Carnegie Institution of Washington "by special arrangements, predoctoral Fellows to undertake thesis research"

Planning for a Dissertation Grant

A dissertation grant can improve the quality of your dissertation and improve the quality of your life while you write the dissertation. Some dissertation grants are very small and will cover only direct research expenses, but do not consider their significance merely symbolic. Holding a dissertation grant indicates you have successfully passed a peer review, and the names of grantees are routinely passed on to conference organizers, university presses, and university employers. Even if you are not successful in the grant competition, the experience of writing the grant application is useful. The success rates in many dissertation grant competitions are significantly higher than in most other professional grant competitions.

The first and most important piece of advice: start early.

  1. Get current information. This packet contains the most recent information we could find, but you will need to seek specific information. Read carefully.
  2. Check your eligibility. Most grants have some conditions regarding stage in degree program, area of specialization, or intended career (e.g., in college teaching). Some of them have restrictions based on citizenship, race, gender, or other characteristics.
  3. Notify your supervising professor that you are thinking about a dissertation grant. Most dissertation grants require some action by your supervisor: in some cases, s/he must write a letter of support. Government agencies usually require that the supervisor be the formal Principal Investigator. Be prepared for necessary authorizations by your department chair and/or dean as well.
  4. Follow the directions exactly. If there is a page limit of fifteen pages, don't assume that sixteen pages will really be OK.
  5. Deadlines are important and real. Besides the deadline published by the agency, UT requirements may take time to complete. Plan on completing the text of your proposal at least two weeks before it is due.
  6. Your ideas are more important than the literature review. Although it is important for readers to feel confident of your knowledge of the field, a dissertation grant proposal is not principally about your assessment of your field. It is about the contribution you will make to the field.
  7. Budgets require justification. Plane fares, for example, should be verified with a travel agent (indicate the name of the agent and the date you checked). The cost of a piece of equipment should be supported with a citation to a catalogue or other price source. Your estimate of the conversion of U.S. dollars to a foreign currency should be verifiable (e.g., a reference to the financial page of the Sunday New York Times.)
  8. Many dissertation grants offer funds only for dissertation improvement. Such grants assume that you will get your dissertation done without any help; they seek some assurance that with a little help, the quality of the dissertation would be improved. Here are some legitimate ways to improve a dissertation:
    • purchase of an otherwise unavailable piece of equipment
    • field study, especially if the site is remote
    • visit to an archive, library, or other geographically-bound resource
    • addition of a comparative case to a study design

Some Resources

First resource: the Internet. Some relevant publications are available in the Graduate School.

American Council of Learned Societies, http://www.acls.org

FULBRIGHT-HAYS DOCTORAL DISSERTATION RESEARCH ABROAD PROGRAM
US Department of Education ,600 Independence Avenue SW ,Washington, DC 20202-5331
Ph: (202) 401-9774

Inter-American Foundation, Fellowship Programs, Fellowship Office, Inter-American Foundation, P.O. Box 9486, Rosslyn, VA, 22209Phone: 703/841-3800 Fax: 703/841-0973; supports graduate students from Latin America, the Caribbean, and the U.S. whose research and career interests concern development activities among the poor. There are 3 fellowship programs:

  1. Latin American and Caribbean program is for graduate studies in the U.S.; the
  2. Masters and
  3. Doctoral fellowship programs support field research in Latin America and the Caribbean for graduate students enrolled in U.S. universities. Fellowships are open to researchers from a variety of disciplines including health sciences, social, and behavioral sciences.

Logistics Education Foundation, dissertation grant for any discipline related to logistics: http://www.telebyte.com/htdocs/sole/lef.html#dissertation

National Institute of Mental Health. Dissertation Research Grants in Child and Adolescent Developmental Psychopathology, HIV/AIDS Research, or Mental Health Services Research/Minority Dissertation Research Grants in Mental Health -- a special use of the R03 mechanism.

National Science Foundation. Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants in the Directorate for Biological Sciences. NSF 94-146. Also see Guidelines for Doctoral Dissertation Research Proposals for the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) (Available from DEB 703-306-1483)

National Science Foundation. Guide to Programs.

National Science Foundation, Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research (SBER): Program Announcement NSF 94-4.

Minority Dissertation Research Grants in Mental Health.

Social Science Research Council, SSRC, 810 Seventh Ave., New York, NY 10019 (212) 377-2700

Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Dept. CWN, CN 5281, Princeton, NJ 08543-5281. Phone (609) 452-7007. Supports Women's Studies dissertation grants and Charlotte Newcomb dissertation grants in ethical studies. Deadlines not yet announced, but are usually late in November or early December.