Social Science Research Council

SSRC fellowship and grant programs provide support and professional recognition to innovators within fields, and especially to younger researchers whose work and ideas will have longer-term impact on society and scholarship. These programs often target the spaces between disciplines, where new perspectives emerge and struggle for acceptance, thus ensuring the production of knowledge and expertise on key topics, regions, and social challenges. They promote the diversification of knowledge production, strengthening research by ensuring that it remains open to (and challenged by) a range of perspectives, backgrounds, and nationalities.

The SSRC has funded the work of more than 10,000 researchers and junior scholars from around the world, often at pivotal moments in their careers. Its fellowships and grant programs have engaged a wide and evolving range of themes, from African youth and globalization to public spheres in the Middle East and North Africa; from human sexuality to memory and repression in Latin America; from the social role of information technologies to the impacts and causes of international migration.

Although most programs target the social sciences, many are also open to applicants from the humanities, the natural sciences, and relevant professional and practitioner communities. In nearly all cases, fellows share their findings through research and training workshops, which provide occasions for them to test their methods and assumptions and to build the interpersonal networks that can support innovative work over time. Fellows benefit, too, from mentoring opportunities with leading senior researchers in their areas. In many cases, they engage not only their academic seniors and peers, but also a range of other producers and users of knowledge, including practitioners in non-governmental organizations, advocates, policymakers, and individuals from the private sector.

Most support from the Council goes to predissertation, dissertation, and postdoctoral fellowships, offered through annual, peer-reviewed competitions. Some programs offer summer institutes, advanced research grants, and grants for professionals and practitioners to conduct research. Most support individual researchers, rather than groups or institutions. Although SSRC fellowship and grant programs take a variety of forms, they share the goals of supporting innovative knowledge production and of building research capacity in areas of critical social importance.