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Writing Grant and Fellowship Applications
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At SEAC 2001, the SEAC Committee for Student Affairs sponsored a student workshop on strategies for writing successful applications for grants and fellowships. The following are some notes from the workshop.
Click here for links to Grants!
WRITING GRANT AND FELLOWSHIP APPLICATIONS |
- comments from Amber VanDerwarker on the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship (annual stipend of $20,000 per year for three years plus tuition and fees for three years of graduate school)
- deadline in early November
- will ask for college and grad school transcripts and scores on the Graduate Record Examination
- take the GRE more than once if you would like to improve your score
- the NSF will pay the GRE registration fee for NSF applicants
- college seniors are eligible, as are first-year and some second-year graduate students
- reviewers are not necessarily specialists in archaeology, nor are they necessarily archaeologists
- application essays should demonstrate academic potential and an interest in new directions in the scholarly study of your chosen topic
- the application will ask you to list the grad schools to which you are applying
- comments from Greg Wilson and Mark Rees on the NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant (up to $12,000 to support fieldwork and collections research)
- no deadline
- no indirect costs are covered
- identify a thematic topic of interest to archaeologists from several regions and ideally a topic of interest to scholars in other subfields of anthropology
- make clear and convincing links between the broader topic of interest and the actual steps in data analysis you will take to answer specific research questions
- proposals can include up to ten pages of text and five figures, or less than five figures and a total of fifteen pages for text and figures, and a bibliography
- applications are reviewed by at least three scholars, sometimes as many as six, and you may recommend reviewers in your cover letter
- your proposal will be reviewed by some people you recommend as well as others
- your bibliography will also suggest ideas for reviewers
- applicants can apply for funding to travel to museums or sites, to conduct fieldwork or laboratory analyses, to hire consultants, and to purchase equipment and supplies
- successful and unsuccessful applicants will receive anonymous review comments, and unsuccessful applicants are eligible to and encouraged to revise and resubmit
- ensure access to collections or to sites before applying
- your dissertation advisor is the principal investigator for your proposed project
- comments from Dawn Ramsey about the National Historic Preservation Fund
- funding from NPS but deadlines are set and proposals evaluated by individual SHPO
- matching grants
- overhead costs paid to institutions
- comments from Vin Steponaitis about Sigma Xi
- deadlines in May and October
- online application process
- applicants or their academic advisors must be members
- ideal for small amounts of money to fund absolute dates or other laboratory analyses of archaeological material
- successful applicants may reapply for further funding to support continuing analysis
- comments from Heather Lapham about predoctoral and postdoctoral fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution
- contact curators to express your interest in these fellowships and the collections you want to study
- visit the Smithsonian web page to find out what materials the Smithsonian has that you might want to study
- comments from Ken Sassaman and Patrick Livingood about Wenner Gren
- deadlines in May and November of every year
- proposals are necessarily ranked against other proposals
- proposals that are not funded in one round of applications may be ranked higher in another round
- not all proposals of merit can necessarily be funded
· unsuccessful applicants do not receive review comments
· only successful applicants will be contacted by the foundation
· general comments from Ken Sassaman...
- academic careers demand grantwriting expertise, and it is very worthwhile for graduate students to begin applying for grants
- clarify your methodologies and sampling strategies, and the links between your methodology and the broader theoretical issues investigated in your proposed project
- revise and resubmit your proposals based on reviewer comments
- apply to funding programs offered by state archaeological societies
- funding for
archaeology in
- awards for archaeological
projects by grad students in
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- offer to help with curating needs when relevant
- seek out your academic advisors for guidance about writing grant and fellowship applications
· general comments from Vin Steponaitis...
- develop an innovative and testable idea that reviewers will recognize needs to be studied and therefore funded
- follow all the guidelines of the grant or fellowship to which you are applying
- demonstrate your ability to achieve the outcomes outlined in your proposal
- your curriculum vita will help demonstrate your background and potential
- your methodology needs to be carefully considered and well described in your proposal
- budget carefully
- don't forget expenses such as supplies and copying
- don't underestimate the time it takes to accomplish your objectives
- consider the review comments carefully and calmly
- reapply reapply reapply
Click here for links to Grants!
webmaster | 1/16/08