International Dissertation Research Fellowships

Description: The International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF) program supports distinguished graduate students in the humanities and social sciences conducting dissertation research outside the United States. Seventy-five fellowships will be awarded in 2009 with funds provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The IDRF program is committed to empirical and site-specific research that advances knowledge about non-U.S. cultures and societies (involving fieldwork, research in archival or manuscript collections, or quantitative data collection). The program promotes research that is situated in a specific discipline and geographical region and is engaged with interdisciplinary and cross-regional perspectives.

Fellowships will provide support for nine to twelve months of dissertation research. Individual awards will be approximately $20,000. No awards will be made for proposals requiring less than nine months of on-site research. The 2009 IDRF fellowship must be held for a single continuous period within the eighteen months between July 2009 and December 2010.

Academic Level:

• Doctorate

Field(s) of Study:

• Humanities
• Social Sciences

Amount: $20,000

No. of Fellowship Recipients: 75

Criteria: The program is open to full-time graduate students in the humanities and social sciences - regardless of citizenship - enrolled in doctoral programs in the United States. Applicants must complete all Ph.D. requirements except on-site research by the time the fellowship begins.

Students enrolled in Ph.D. programs in public policy, public health, and education, may be eligible to apply if their research projects engage directly with broader theoretical and analytical issues in the humanities and social sciences. The program does not accept applications from Ph.D. programs in law, business, medicine, nursing or journalism. Students who have already received nine months or more of support for dissertation research in one country are not eligible to apply to the IDRF to extend the research time in the same country. The IDRF program will not support study at foreign universities, conference participation, short research trips abroad or projects relying primarily on labwork.