Resources

Funding Sources

A successful proposal requires a tight match between your topic and funding source. Unfortunately many students only know of the "big three" (Fulbright, SSRC, NSF), and competition for those grants is fierce. Your topic may, moreover, be better suited to a more specialized funding source. We have included a broad -- but by no means exhaustive -- selection of potential funders. These are organized by the funders' respective themes or subject areas and by funders' geographic area of interest.

Funders by Theme/Discipline | Funders by Region

Ethics and Freedom of Speech

All too often, ethical considerations are overlooked in proposal writing and research. Every discipline and institution has its own standards of appropriate methods and protocols, and it is your responsibility to be aware of those that apply to you. To help you along in this process, we have included a number of the major disciplinary associations' ethical guidelines for conducting empirical research. Be warned, many universities also require you to submit detailed research or ethical protocols for approval before you go into the field. Be advised: submit these early (see the timeline).

Ethics and Freedom of Speech

Ethnography Resources

Ian Cook, Department of Geography at the University of Wales, Lampeter, and Mike Crang, Department of Geography at the University of Durham, co-wrote a booklet titled Doing Ethnographies to introduce "a guide to the practice of those methods broadly referred to as 'ethnographic', i.e. participant observation, interviewing, focus groups and, increasingly, video/photographic work." Consult this reading material as a guide in preparation for your ethnographic methods. Another good sourcelist for doing fieldwork is a bibliography on ethnographic methods by Michael Watts. Both of these documents are in PDF.

Doing Ethnographies [Download ~1.7MB pdf] | Ethnographic Methods Bibliography [Download ~102k pdf]

Further Grant-Writing Resources

There are also links to other "metasites" (e.g., university fellowship offices) which may be more specialized or more expansive. If you do not see what you are looking for in this site, these other links may better suit your needs and interests. This page also includes links to other online grant-writing resources.

Funding Metasites | Grant-Writing Resources

Field Methods

UC Berkeley's Human Right Center has offered a class in field methods: "Documenting War: Field Methods in Historical Context." See the course description and download the syllabus[in PDF]. (See also the course description at the HRC website.)

"Field Methods" Course Description

Social Science Research Council Materials

The Social Science Research Council (www.ssrc.org) pre-dissertation program has developed a useful listing of materials relevant to a number of field method approaches - including archival research, surveys, participatory research, focus groups and so on.

SSRC Recommended Readings on Research Methods [Download ~294k pdf]