Application Instructions

Although English is preferred, applications may be submitted in other languages. Fellowship work may also be carried out in languages other than English. In the case of applications not written in English, the applicant is responsible for providing a high quality translation of all materials in English. Applicants should beware that translation errors or misinterpretations may render the application far less competitive than it would be otherwise.

Applicants should submit the following in one envelope:

1. An Application Form

2. A 10-page double-spaced proposal describing the proposed research project and work experience (where applicable). See proposal writing instructions below.

3. A CV or Résumé

4. All university transcripts

5. You should also ask three referees to submit letters of recommendation, sealed and with the referee’s signature across the seal. You are responsible for the safe and timely arrival of these recommendations.

6. Language Evaluation Form
 
 

Proposal Instructions

The proposal consists of Part 1: Research Project, Part 2: Work experience or academic residence (academic residence is for professional research fellowships only), and Part 3: Bibliography. Parts 1 and 2 should be typewritten in a font no smaller than 12 points, with margins no smaller than one inch, on single-sided, double-spaced pages and should not exceed 10 pages. Part 3 (the bibliography) should not exceed two single-sided, single-spaced pages.

Proposals should be thorough and written in non-technical prose. For further suggestions on proposal writing, visit our website (www.ssrc.org) and look for The Art of Writing Proposals, a short guide by Adam Przeworski and Frank Salomon.

I. Research Project

Your proposal should contain the following information. Each section should begin on a separate page with a clear heading (e.g., “Problem”).

(NOTE: Joint fellowship proposals must clearly identify each applicant’s role in training and research.)

1. Problem. Specify the central problem your project addresses.  What are the crucial research questions, puzzles, or hypotheses?
2. Methodology. Describe the data sources and/or evidence to be drawn on to address your central problem. Where do you intend to look for this data/evidence? What are the methods and research operations you will undertake to collect, analyze, or interpret that data/evidence. As the Art of Writing Proposals says: “Do not just tell what you mean to achieve, tell how you will spend your time while doing it…a methodology is not just a list of research tasks but an argument as to why these tasks add up to the best attack on the problem…Be as specific as you possibly can about the activities you plan to undertake to collect information, and about the techniques you will use to analyze it,”
3. Context. Set your research question in the context of existing work or research in the topic area (if any). “Help your reader understand where the problem intersects the main…debates in your field and show how this inquiry puts established ideas to the test or offers new ones.”
4. Impact. Specify how the proposed research will contribute to knowledge, understanding, policies or practices in the field of conflict and peace.

Examples of research areas include:
 

• Bridging of different bodies of knowledge and theory produced by researchers working on security issues in varying countries and organizations (like NGOs);
• Utilizing the knowledge generated by multilateral organizations, NGOs, and other practitioners to evaluate and rethink longer-term strategies as well as to build new theory;
• Analyzing the underlying political, economic, and cultural conditions of conflict, insecurity, and peace and addressing relevant social transformations;
• Rethinking inherited models of the state and governance that are inadequate for understanding the complex security contexts in which more than one type of actor operates within or across borders, whether they are public organizations like UN agencies or private organizations like NGOs and corporations; and
• Making connections between different dimensions of conflict and insecurity, such as the eco-system degradation, migration, infectious diseases, gender, weapons proliferation, war, food supply, biodiversity, global finance and trade, economic inequality, ethnicity, sovereignty and nationalism.

II. Work Experience or academic residence (for Professional research fellowships only).

Please describe your proposed program of work experience or academic mentoring by answering the following questions:

1. Explain where you plan to undertake the work experience/academic residence.
2. Explain why experience at this particular organization or university is necessary for your proposed research and how it will contribute to your intellectual and professional development. Make clear why the new skills, insights and knowledge that you expect to gain would not otherwise be available without the fellowship.
3. Describe what activities this program will involve. Propose a tentative institution rather than proposing no host at all.

III. Bibliography

Please include a bibliography not to exceed 2 pages single-spaced.  You may include materials cited directly in the main body of your proposal, as well as general references relevant to your project and the bodies of knowledge that your project addresses.

Deadline

· Applications must be received in our offices by December 3, 2001.
· Application forms should be requested well before the deadline of December 3, 2001.
· Applications sent by fax, email or received after December 3, 2001 will not be accepted under any circumstances.
· Submit the above six items in one envelope to:

Program on Global Security & Cooperation
Social Science Research Council
810 Seventh Avenue, 31st Floor
New York, NY 10019
USA
 Telephone 212 377 2700
 Fax 212 377 2727
 gsc@ssrc.org