Global Religion Research Initiative
The Global Religion Research Initiative (GRRI) of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society (CSRS) at the University of Notre Dame (IN, USA) will be awarding nine (9) academic year teaching-and-service leave fellowships in the social sciences over three years, in order to advance the study of global religion by facilitating the completion of significant, new scholarly books on religions in different parts of the world. Each fellowship will provide up to $70,000 toward the full reduction of teaching and committee responsibilities for one academic year (if those funds are insufficient to cover the costs of the full leave, the recipients’ institutions must “cost share” the balance).
Fellowship recipients will be expected to focus their primary attention during their year leaves on completing the writing of their books, toward expeditiously securing a publishing contract with a top university press. Three (3) fellowships will be awarded each year on average over three academic years (2017-2018, 2018-2019, and 2019-2020). The next round of applications are for the 2019-2020 academic year. The Global Religion Research Initiative is funded by the Templeton Religion Trust of Nassau, Bahamas.
These fellowships intend to fund full academic-year leaves from regular teaching and service responsibilities in order to facilitate faculty in the social sciences completing their (already underway) book projects on a religion or religions beyond the North Atlantic world (i.e., not the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe). The purpose is to support the careers of (especially, but not exclusively, young) North American social science faculty who are researching and writing about religions in various regions of the world, to enhance the variety and depth of published scholarship on the same, and to help better integrate the study of global religion into mainstream social sciences.
Fellowships will not support data collection for book projects (see other GRRI competitive funding programs for that), but instead intend to provide faculty the time and focus needed to complete the writing of books on which they have already been working and have made substantial headway. Faculty scholars working on their first book are especially encouraged to apply.
These fellowships seek to support the “final year” of book writing work, to free scholars who are otherwise bogged down with teaching and service responsibilities in order finally to move “over the hump” of completing the writing of their book manuscripts. Prospective applicants should time their proposals over the three years that this fellowship is offered to fit best the development of their book projects according to these program intentions.
Eligible applicants are social science faculty at North American colleges and universities who (a) occupy regular tenure-track or tenured university or college positions, and (b) whose book projects fit the selection criteria listed below. “Social sciences” here includes sociology, political science, anthropology, economics, and psychology; book projects in religious studies departments are eligible if their methodologies are fundamentally social scientific. Prospective applicants in other departments (e.g., areas studies) should inquire with GRRI staff about their possible eligibility (at grri@nd.edu). All appropriate social science methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, are eligible. (Quantitative studies, however, must go beyond merely identifying statistically significant variables to naming, describing, and testing the causal mechanisms believed to explain those associations; ethnographic studies must include enough mixed-methods evidence to contextualize their findings). Studies using traditional methods in the humanities — analyzing texts, telling purely historical narratives, interpretive studies of works of art and performance — are not eligible. Potentially fundable proposals may involve innovative interdisciplinary work with the natural sciences (e.g., psychology and neurology, anthropology and cognitive science) but at their heart must fundamentally speak to the mainstream of social sciences.
Specific amounts of fellowships awarded will depend on each recipient’s salary and benefits costs, which proposals must document. Fellowship will pay up to $70,000 total, and will be distributed to award recipients institutions. Only salary and benefit costs can be paid with these funds. Indirect and overhead costs are not an allowable expense for this fellowship. Proposals not requiring the full $70,000 may be looked upon favorably. If the maximum awardable funds are insufficient to cover the costs of the faculty member's full leave costs, then his or her institution must ”cost share“ the amount needed in excess of $70,000 to provide the full academic year relief from teaching and service responsibilities.
Global Religion Book-Writing Academic Year Leave Fellowship proposals will be judged by a panel of expert reviewers. Successful proposals will involve book projects that are:
For a more elaborate list of evaluation criteria, click here. (Note: Depending on the volume of applications received for this fellowship, the GRRI may not be able to provide applicants specific ratings or feedback from the evaluation process.)
Applications must include the following materials to be considered for funding:
All application materials must be submitted in English. Applicants are responsible to submit all required materials. Incomplete applications will not be evaluated for possible funding. Each researcher may not submit proposals to more than two GRRI programs in any given year.
Co-author pairs interested in applying for funding should contact the GRRI staff at grri@nd.edu to ask about the possibility of applying for funding.
The application period for Round 3 is closed.
We will announce fellowship and grant recipients early in the Spring 2019 semester. Please contact grri@nd.edu with any questions about submitted applications.
