HFG Emerging Scholars Stanford University 2020 (Photo by Philip Pacheco/Getty Images) The Harry Frank Guggenheim Emerging Scholar Awards (formerly the Harry Frank Guggenheim Dissertation Fellowships) recognize promising researchers in their final year of writing a doctoral dissertation examining a salient aspect of violence. The Foundation welcomes proposals from any of the natural and social sciences or allied disciplines that promise to increase understanding of the causes, manifestations, and control of violence and aggression. Highest priority is given to research that addresses urgent, present-day problems of violence—what produces it, how it operates, and what prevents or reduces it. The Foundation is interested in violence related to many subjects, including, but not limited to, the following: War Crime Terrorism Family and intimate-partner relationships Climate instability and natural resource competition Racial, ethnic, and religious conflict Political extremism and nationalism The Foundation supports research that investigates the basic mechanisms in the production of violence, but primacy is given to proposals that make a compelling case for the relevance of potential findings for policies intended to reduce these ills. Likewise, historical research is considered to the extent that it is relevant to a current situation of violence. Examinations of the effects of violence are welcome insofar as a strong case is made that these outcomes serve, in turn, as causes of future violence. The Emerging Scholar Awards The award is $25,000 for one year and contributes to the support of a doctoral candidate to enable the completion of a dissertation that advances the Foundation’s research interests described above in a timely manner. They are available only to students for support during the final year of Ph.D. studies. The award does not support doctoral research. Applicants may be citizens of any country and studying at colleges or universities in any country. Timing Applications for the awards open annually on January 1 and must be received by February 1 the following year for a decision in June. Final decisions are made by the HFG Board of Directors at its meeting in June. Applicants will be informed promptly by email of the Board’s decision. Awards ordinarily commence on September 1, but other starting dates (after July 1) may be requested if the nature of the project deems this appropriate. Eligibility Applicants for an award must be Ph.D. candidates entering the dissertation stage of graduate study. Usually, this means that fieldwork or other research is complete and writing has begun or will at the beginning of the award period. If analysis and writing are not far enough along for an applicant to be confident that the dissertation will be completed within the award year, an application should not be submitted. In some disciplines, particularly experimental fields, research and writing can reasonably be expected to be completed within the same year, and in those cases, it is appropriate to apply. Application Candidates for the Harry Frank Guggenheim Emerging Scholar Awards may apply online annually between January 1 and February 1. Applicants must create an account to access the application and guidelines. The guidelines are also available through the second link below. Online Application (Login required) Application Guidelines (PDF) Advice for Applicants (PDF) Recent Recipients2025Christopher Baidoo (Boston College). Do Legal Interventions Save Lives? Evaluating Their Impact on Fatal Police Encounters and Racial Disparities Jonathan Burke (New York University). Local Government Expenditures as Structural Determinants of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Firearm Homicides Matthew Coetzee (University of Notre Dame). Rupture and Repair: Community Responses to State Failure and Racial Violence in Post-Apartheid South Africa Keïsha Corantin (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). Producing the City Through Violence: The Criminal Regulation of the Informal Land Market in Medellín, Colombia Haley Allen DeMarco (Yale University). Repressing the Resistance: The Police and the Military in Authoritarian Regimes Jimmy Graham (New York University). Collective Violence and Peacebuilding: Evidence from South Sudan on Approaches to Reducing Collective Violence Rebekah Jones (University of California, Berkeley). Autonomous Zones: How Decentralization Undermines Justice in U.S. Local Governments Saad Lakhani (Stanford University). Protectors of the Prophet’s Honor: The Politics of Blasphemy and Respect in Pakistan Annah McCurry (University of St Andrews). Emotion as a Driver of Violent and Aggressive Behaviour Karmvir Padda (University of Waterloo). Navigating the Digital Terrain of Ideologically Motivated Violent Extremism: A Comprehensive Analysis of Online Radicalization Jessie Waldman (University of Cape Town). The Cinderella of the South African Courts? Delay, De-Prioritisation and Re-Purposing Process: The Operation of Discretion in Inquests Daniel Waqar (Tufts University). People to the Power: Governing “Violent” Crowds, Section 144, and “Unlawful Assembly” in South Asia, c. 1830s–1970s See Full List
