2012 SSRC Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF)

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The Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) is designed to help early-stage graduate students in the humanities and social sciences formulate effective doctoral dissertation proposals. Senior scholars serve as Research Directors and identify research fields for groups of 12 graduate students. The Research Directors design two workshops: one, held in the spring, to prepare students to undertake summer research that will inform the design of their dissertation proposals; the other, held in the fall, to help students apply their summer research experiences to writing dissertation and funding proposals. Working together, Research Directors and graduate students help shape emerging fields in the humanities and social sciences.

Research Fields:
•   The program is organized around distinct research fields every year. A research field refers to subdisciplinary and interdisciplinary domains of inquiry with common intellectual questions, and styles of research.
•   Fields might emerge from novel ways of encouraging comparative and interdisciplinary work.
•   They can also be topical in focus, transnational in scope, or comparative. In general, DPDF seeks to fund identifiable research fields, not simply research problems.

Faculty Application:
•   Annually, the DPDF's Selection Committee selects five research fields, each proposed by two senior faculty with different institutional affiliations and, as relevant, different disciplinary specializations.
•   Selected Research Directors design and lead the two student workshops, and serve as mentors to the fellows during the course of their summer research.
•   Each Research Director receives a stipend of $10,000 for preparing and running the workshops, and for being available to students over the summer.

DPDF Eligibility Criteria for Faculty:
•   Applicants must be based at different universities in the United States and have records of carrying out research activities and mentoring graduate students.
•   At least one member of each team must be a tenured faculty member at a doctoral degree-granting program, and both must be tenured at the time of application.
•   Applicants must be trained in different disciplines or bring different methodological frameworks to their proposed field.
•   Research Directors must be available to participate in both the spring and fall workshops, the dates for which can be found in the DPDF Application and Award Timeline below.

DPDF Application and Award 2012 Cycle:
•   April 15, 2011 - Online Faculty Competition opens.
•   September 30, 2011 - Online Faculty Competition deadline, Online Application Closes, 6 PM EST.
•   Mid-November 2011 - Faculty Awards and Research Fields Announced.
•   November 23, 2011 - Online Student Application Opens.
•   January 27, 2012 - Online Student Application Deadline, Online Application Closes, 6 PM EST.
•   Late-March 2012 - Student Awards Announced.
•   May 30 – June 3, 2012 - Spring Fellowship Workshop.
•   September 12-16, 2012 - Fall Fellowship Workshop.

- Click here for a sample application.
- Online Application Link: SSRC Online Application Portal

For further information, contact the following:

Program Director
Josh DeWind

Deputy Director
Camille Peretz

Email: dpdf@ssrc.org

Deadline: September 30th 2011. 

DPDF Faculty Field — Social Science Research Council

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