Political Science graduate students may apply for the Summer 2024 competitive fellowships listed below. The application deadline is April 3, 2024. Students will be notified of decisions in May and all awards will be disbursed through the payroll system in July.
The Graduate Work Committee (GWC) will determine the recipients, based upon the selection criteria below and the specific conditions listed for each fellowship.
Students must ask their adviser to send a brief letter of support to [email protected].
Students at any stage in the program may apply for these funds. Those in earlier years may have a specific pre-dissertation research project in mind or want to acquire a specific research or professionalization tool with a faculty mentor. Several fellowships (e.g. Dickinson) are geared toward students in more advanced years. Consult with your adviser.
General Conditions:
- Funds will be disbursed through the payroll system after July 1, 2024.
- Funds must be used by the end of the fiscal year (June 30, 2025).
- Funds may not be used to purchase hardware or equipment.
- Students in Years 1-5 receiving one of these awards over a summer will still receive their $8,275 summer fellowship.
- Additional conditions may be outlined with the specific fellowship below.
- The department retains the right to award students different fellowship(s) than specifically requested, and to award above, below, or at the requested budget amount depending upon the fellowships in question and overall available funds.
Selection Criteria:
- Students must be in good academic standing in the department, as defined by progress toward degree and academic performance.
- Strength of proposal, including relevance of activity to student’s research and progress toward degree.
- Adviser support of the project.
- Additional criteria may be outlined with the specific fellowship below.
- Proposals to fund direct research activity (travel, work in the field, visits to archives, etc.), will be given priority over stipends.
Specific Fellowship Information
Graduate Research Partnership Program Fellowship (GRPP)
The College of Liberal Arts provides funds to programs for research partnerships between Political Science faculty and graduate students. The GRPP provides a fellowship to qualified graduate students to support their scholarly and professional development while collaborating with a faculty mentor. The faculty mentor does not need to be your adviser, and can be a faculty member from outside the Political Science program. Since the fellowship has a mentoring component, the strongest applications often come from students who are completing their second or third year in the program. The selection criteria include a preference for new projects under the mentorship of UMN faculty.
Examples of GRPP projects:
- Any research project working with a faculty mentor
- Working with a faculty mentor on a specific collaborative project (e.g. writing a research paper for review for publication in a peer-reviewed journal)
- Survey work, under the guidance of a faculty mentor
- Archival or field research, under the guidance of a faculty mentor
- Language study in the U.S. or abroad, under the guidance of a faculty mentor
- Attending a research methods institute (e.g. ICPSR, IQMR, etc.), under the guidance of a faculty mentor
Specific Conditions:
- Awards are for $4,000 each. There are five awards available for Summer 2024.
- Students may apply for the GRPP a second time; however, first-time applicants are given priority.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Research Fellowship
The DEI Research Fellowship follows the Graduate School’s articulation of diversity (viewpoints and experiences): the Graduate School defines diversity as the “inclusion of individuals with differing backgrounds and experiences derived from, e.g., different ethnicities, gender identities, nationalities, socioeconomic backgrounds, veteran status, and/or disabilities.”
Applications must meet one or both of the following criteria by addressing how the fellowship would:
- Support the applicant’s pursuit of scholarship that surfaces questions, views, and perspectives that have been historically marginalized within academic and institutional structures by providing structured mentoring from faculty with relevant expertise.
- Enhance the graduate education experience of an applicant with diverse viewpoints and experiences and/or from historically marginalized groups by facilitating support from, and engagement with, faculty mentors.
The faculty mentor does not need to be your adviser, and can be a faculty member from outside the Political Science program. Students are encouraged to seek out faculty with whom a mentoring relationship would support the fellowship’s DEI focus. Applications are not limited by the subfield of your project.
Specific Conditions:
- One award of $8,000.
Claggett Graduate Research Fellowship
The Claggett Graduate Research Fellowship is for students in any subfield entering the program Fall 2017 and later. It may be used to support either pre-dissertation research tools (language coursework, ICPSR, IQMR, etc.) or dissertation research (archival, field research, surveys, software, etc).
Specific Conditions:
- Award amounts are dependent upon the number of applicants in a given year and the budgets requested.
- Students may receive the Claggett Research Fellowship a maximum of two times.
Andrew Dickinson Memorial Fellowship
The Andrew Dickinson Memorial Fellowship provides funds for graduate students to conduct short-term doctoral research abroad. In keeping with the scholarly and compassionate spirit of Andrew Dickinson’s life and work and the donors' wishes, preference will be given to students of political theory who share Andrew’s commitment to connect political theory with practice. If the first preference cannot be met, secondary preference will be given more broadly to students who share Andrew's concern with an ethical conception of international politics that is innovative and responsive to concerns of power and oppression on all scales.
Specific Conditions:
- The research proposal submitted for the Dickinson Memorial Fellowship should also contain a brief description of the doctoral research project as a whole; a detailed description of why research abroad is necessary for the project; and a timeline for conducting the research abroad.
- The description should provide as much detail as possible regarding the research the student plans to undertake (e.g., archival research, interviews, participatory research).
- Awards are $6,000 each. There are five awards available for Summer 2024.
- Students will be expected to complete a letter of thanks to the donor(s) when receiving this fellowship.
Duvall Fellowship in International Relations
The Duvall Fellowship in International Relations is to support graduate students conducting basic research in the field of international relations. The fellowship is open to all first field IR students in the program.
Specific Conditions:
- Award amounts are dependent upon the number of applicants in a given year and the budgets requested.
- Students may receive the Duvall Fellowship a maximum of one time.
Ornstein Fellowship in American Politics
The Ornstein Fellowship is to support graduate students with a research specialty in American politics. Preference will be given to students whose research focuses on addressing contemporary problems with American political institutions.
Specific Conditions:
- Award amounts are dependent upon the number of applicants in a given year and the budgets requested.
- Students may receive the Ornstein Fellowship a maximum of one time.
Rapoport Family Foundation Summer Research Collaborative Program
The program aims to foster graduate students’ research and publication abilities by funding joint proposals from faculty and first- or second-year Ph.D. students for summer research in the fields of American politics and policy and comparative political behavior (with preference for American political behavior).