HFG Emerging Scholars

STANFORD, CA – MARCH 09: A person walks past archways during a quiet morning at Stanford University on March 9, 2020 in Stanford, California. Stanford University announced that classes will be held online for the remainder of the winter quarter after a staff member working in a clinic tested positive for the Coronavirus. (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 on November 1, 2023 and must be received by February 1, 2024 for a decision in June. Final decisions are made by the HFG Board of Directors at its meeting in June 2024. 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 November 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 Recipients

2023

Tessa Devereaux Evans (Cornell University). To Have and to Hold: The Determinants of Insurgent Gender Governance
Eldad Levy Guerrero (University of Texas at Austin). Making a Market for Security: Private Security Entrepreneurship in Mexico City
Tauhid bin Kashem (University of California, Irvine). Violence and Protection at the Borders of the Refugee Regime: Refugee Response in South and Southeast Asia
Isabel Laterzo (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). The Politics of Public Security: An Analysis of Campaigns and Policy in Brazilian States
Britni Moore (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign). Police Recruits and the Discursive Construction of Rape in Sexual Assault Training
Ana Paula Pellegrino (Georgetown University). The State That Forges Armed Criminal Groups
Apekshya Prasai (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Gendered Processes of Rebellion: Understanding Strategies for Organizing Violence
Matthew Schissler (University of Michigan). Cultivating Islamophobia: Fear, Revulsion, and a Buddhist Movement Against Muslims in Myanmar
Natán Skigin (University of Notre Dame). Punitive Solidarity in Drug Wars: How Human Rights Campaigns Shape Prosocial Behavior and Criminal Justice Preferences