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The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) is organized to help early-stage graduate students in the humanities and social sciences formulate effective doctoral dissertation proposals.

Each year, the program offers training within different interdisciplinary fields of study under the leadership of pairs of tenured senior faculty, who define the fields and serve as research directors for groups of 12 graduate students. The students participate in two workshops: one in the spring, to prepare students to undertake summer research that will inform the design of their dissertation research; the other in the fall, to help students apply their summer research experiences to writing dissertation and funding proposals. Students may apply for up to $5,000 to cover summer research costs. Working together, research directors and graduate students design research that will help to shape evolving fields in the humanities and social science.

DPDF Eligibility Criteria for Students

The DPDF program is open to doctoral students in social science or humanities disciplines who have completed their major course requirements and are beginning to design research proposals. Students who have completed their comprehensive, general, or qualifying exams are eligible to apply as long as their dissertation proposals will be formally approved by their department after the fall DPDF workshop. Typically such students will be second and third year graduate students, but first and fourth year student may, under exceptional circumstances, be eligible.

Applicants must be enrolled full-time in a Ph.D. program within an accredited university in the United States, unless indicated otherwise for a particular field. In the current application cycle French students and foreign students enrolled in a French institution are also invited to apply to participate in the field of "Multiculturalism, Immigration, and Identity in Western Europe and the United States."

Students may apply to participate in only one research field and, if selected, they are required to attend both spring and fall workshops and undertake summer research, the dates for which are listed in the in the DPDF Application & Award Timeline. Under exceptional circumstances, a student may be excused from part of one workshop, but potential applicants should contact DPDF staff and obtain approval before applying.

Applicants must propose to undertake summer research that will enable them to experiment with methods of investigation appropriate to their research topics and questions. To do so, applicants are expected to apply to the program for funding to cover summer research costs, but they must also seek financial support from their home institutions or extramural sources whenever available. Selected fellows will be asked to explain why necessary research funds are unavailable from their departments, home institutions, or other sources.

Students who have already received funding and undertaken research on their proposed dissertation topic are not eligible to participate in the DPDF program. Students who have applied either this year or in previous years to the SSRC's International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF), or for any other major funding grant to support dissertation research, are no longer eligible to apply to the DPDF program. If you are unsure whether your current research applications or funding disqualify you from the DPDF program, please contact DPDF staff.

Contact DPDF staff regarding any question about the program, eligibility, or application process, but before doing so, please read the DPDF FAQ for Prospective Students which provides answers to common questions.

DPDF Selection Criteria for Students

Student applications will be evaluated on the basis of the following criteria.

Originality and appropriateness of the topic.  The dissertation topic must suggest an original contribution to an existing body of scholarship.  It should acknowledge and build on such scholarship while presenting a new research question and suggesting a substantive and appropriate methodological direction in the research.  Topics that are interdisciplinary and comparative are especially encouraged; in all cases, the topic must fit within the research field as described in the current field descriptions, and applicants will also be assessed on the basis of how their topics complement and elaborate the stated aims of the research field.

Preparation of the student.  Students should have completed sufficient course work in or related to the research field for which they are applying;  they should also have completed one or more research papers or presentations related to their field (undergraduate honors papers, major research papers, M.A. theses, workshop or conference presentations). Additional research experience (e.g., research assistantships) is valuable.   Students must be in good standing in their home departments. In order to participate in the DPDF program, students must have finished all incomplete course work and have removed any "Incompletes" from their transcripts before the spring workshop in May.

Summer Predissertation Research Plan.  Preliminary summer research plans must justify the necessity and relevance of undertaking on-site, empirical investigations - whether qualitative, quantitative, archival, or library-based - related to the dissertation topic.  Students should describe the kinds of investigations they expect to pursue and sources they might consult and outline a research timetable. It is recommended that students make formal and professional contacts at their research sites.

Summer Funding.  The DPDF Program may award fellowships with or without funding depending on financial need.  Summer research funding of up to $5000 is available to cover necessary research costs, but applicants are required to submit budget proposals that justify the use of these funds. 

Research Fields

Every year the program is organized around different, interdisciplinary research fields. A research field refers to subdisciplinary and interdisciplinary domains of inquiry with common intellectual questions and varied styles of research. Fields might emerge from novel approaches to comparative and interdisciplinary work. They can also be topical in focus, transnational in scope, or comparative. In general, DPDF seeks to provide traning within identifiable research fields, not simply research problems.

Examples of past research fields include: Black Atlantic Studies; Rethinking Europe; Religion, Ethnicity, Nation; The Political Economy of Redistribution; Visual Culture; Water Sustainability: Society, Politics, Culture; Animal Studies; Critical Studies of Science & Technology Policy; Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change; Muslim Modernities; Urban Visual Studies. (For current and past research field descriptions, click on the "Competitions" drop-down box on the top of this page)

Program Director
Josh DeWind
Deputy Director
Camille Peretz
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Additional Information

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