Fellowships and Grants > Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) Program

DPDF Student Fellowship Competition

Providing early-stage graduate students with support to formulate effective doctoral dissertation proposals

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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 dissertation proposal development under the leadership of pairs of tenured senior faculty in the US and abroad who define emerging or reinvigorated multidisciplinary research fields. These research field directors lead groups of 12 graduate students through two workshops during the fellowship cycle. The spring workshop prepares students to undertake summer preliminary research that will inform the design of more robust dissertation research in the future. The fall workshop helps students apply their summer research experiences to writing both dissertation and funding proposals. Students may apply for up to $5,000 to cover summer research costs. Travel and accommodations to attend both workshops are covered by the DPDF Program.

Working together, research directors and graduate students design research that will help to shape evolving fields in the humanities and social sciences. Additionally, through the program’s ongoing collaboration with international research institutions, the DPDF creates a space for international as well as domestic network building among fellows.

The 2012 Research Fields are as follows: Ecological History, Gender Justice in the Era of Human Rights, Governing Global Production, Mediated Futures: Globalization and Historical Territories, and New Approaches to Transnationalism and Migratory Circulation.

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 students 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. International fields are open to students enrolled in universities within countries of the international co-sponsoring organizations.

Students may apply to participate in only one research field. If selected, fellows are required to attend both spring and fall workshops in addition to undertaking summer research. The workshop dates and locations are listed in the DPDF Application & Award Timeline. Applicants must propose to undertake summer research that will enable them to experiment with methods of investigation appropriate to their research topics and questions. Although applicants are expected to apply to the program for funding to cover summer research costs, 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 in most cases no longer eligible to apply to the DPDF program. Contact DPDF staff for all inquiries regarding the program, eligibility, or application process. Before doing so, please read the DPDF FAQ for Prospective Students which provides answers to common questions. Please do not contact research directors directly with questions. Queries about research topics will be forwarded to research directors as necessary for a response.

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). 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 June.

Summer pre-dissertation 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. Students are strongly recommended to request a minimum of two months at their research sites. It is also 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 $5,000 is available to cover necessary research costs, but applicants are required to submit budget proposals that justify the use of these funds.

Research Fields

The DPDF program selects five different fields of study each year for dissertation research proposal training, choosing emerging or reinvigorating fields that address broad public concerns and can be approached from multiple intellectual, societal, and geographic perspectives. Each domain of inquiry centers on a core set of issues and questions that can valuably be addressed by the intellectual perspectives and research styles of different humanities and social science disciplines, encouraging the development of interdisciplinary networks that engage both doctoral students and senior scholars. Usually, at least one research field is formed through an international partnership with a non-US research institution, expanding the potential for cross-national dialogue. Examples of past research fields include:

Black Atlantic Studies ● The Political Economy of Redistribution ● Visual Culture ● Critical Studies of Science and Technology Policy ● Animal Studies ● Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change ● Muslim Modernities ● Science/Art Studies ● Global Indigenous Politics ● Migration and Gender Studies

(For current and past research field descriptions, click on the "Research Fields" drop-down box on the top of this page.)

Program Director
Josh DeWind
Program Officer
Marika Dunn
Contacts

Additional Information

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