The Civil Society Scholar Awards (CSSA) support international academic mobility to enable doctoral students and university faculty to access resources that enrich socially engaged research and critical scholarship in their home country or region.
The awards support activities such as fieldwork (data collection); research visits to libraries, archives, or universities; course/curriculum development; and international collaborations leading to a peer-reviewed publication.
Civil Society Scholars are selected on the basis of their outstanding contributions to research or other engagement with local communities, to furthering debates on challenging societal questions, and to strengthening critical scholarship and academic networks within their fields.
Eligibility Criteria
The awards are open to the following academic populations:
- Doctoral students of eligible fields studying at accredited universities inside or outside of their home country;
- Full-time faculty members teaching at universities in their home country.
Candidates must be citizens of the following countries: Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Haiti, Kosovo, Laos, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Myanmar/Burma, Nepal, Palestine, Papua New Guinea, Serbia, Sudan, South Sudan, Syria, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, or Yemen.
- Project duration: 2–10 months
- Eligible dates: August 1, 2015–August 31, 2016
- Maximum funding requests: $10,000 for doctoral students; $15,000 for faculty members
For more eligibility criteria, please consult the Frequently Asked Questions document in the Download Files section.
Ineligibility Criteria
Applicants may not request grant assistance for the support of:
- federal and/or state taxes;
- computer hardware, software or other computer-related equipment;
- automobile-related expenses;
- tuition/academic fees if the activity is not for the first year of a doctoral program;
- conference attendance which is not part of a larger research project;
- applications from more than one individual.
Ineligible fields include: business administration, management training, computer science, finance/banking, marketing, engineering, hard sciences (physics, biology, chemistry, etc.), mathematics, medical sciences, or teaching English as a foreign language/language instruction.
Applicants with permanent resident status, dual citizenship, and/or asylum seekers in Australia, Canada, European Union, New Zealand, Nordic Countries, or the United States are not eligible to apply.
Students or faculty currently enrolled in master’s degree programs are not eligible to apply.
Guidelines
Competition for the CSSA awards is merit-based. Selection will be made on the basis of proven academic excellence, a clear and justifiable need for international travel to complete the research project, and relevance of the project to the development of open society in the applicant’s home country.
Selected grantees may be invited by CSSA to attend short-term trainings/summer school, and a participant conference during the grant period. Travel costs and accommodation for these events will be covered by CSSA.
Complete guidelines on the conditions of these awards are available in the Download Files section.
Applicants are strongly suggested to submit their application online.
Alternatively, applicants may submit an application in hard copy and submit it to one of the offices noted in the guidelines.
