Entries open for Graduate Sabbatical Grants

Graduate Sabbatical Grants for PhD candidates (ABD) and postdoctoral fellows to buy out teaching or research responsibilities for a semester so that they can complete vital work toward the completion of their degrees, publications, or other milestones in their early academic careers.

The highly competitive grants can be renewed for grantees who show exceptional progress. Summer fellowships for graduate students are available. Awardees are expected to complete a significant milestone in their early academic career—examples include finishing large portions of a dissertation, completing and submitting material for publication, or producing work and presenting at a major conference.

Awardees will be asked to provide updates on significant milestones during the course of the sabbatical and to inform IHS about other relevant research progress. These grants are highly competitive and applicants who do not receive a sabbatical offer may still be invited to receive a Humane Studies Fellowship. Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Applicants will be notified of their award decision within eight weeks of submission.

Focus Areas

• Liberalism, Pluralism, Democracy:
  • Constitutionally constrained liberal democracies foster peace, freedom, and widespread prosperity. However, the rise of contemporary illiberal ideologies threatens democratic institutions, individual freedoms, and the prospects for peaceful pluralism. The Liberalism, Pluralism, and Democracy initiative aims to spark innovative ideas and solutions that uphold and fortify the norms and institutions that underlie the liberal project and promote widespread human flourishing.
• Speech and Intellectual Freedom:
  • Freedoms of speech, expression, and intellectual inquiry drive innovation, the growth of knowledge, and social progress. The Speech and Intellectual Freedom initiative supports research examining new and increasingly complex challenges to these freedoms, including those presented by illiberal political movements, technological change, and contemporary threats to academic freedom.
• Equality, Peace, and Prosperity:
  • Individual liberty, equality before the law, free enterprise, and voluntary cooperation, are essential to prosperous, peaceful, and flourishing societies that enable every person to pursue their full potential. The Equality, Peace, and Prosperity initiative supports research investigating the barriers that inhibit people from realizing their full potential, the underlying causes of violent conflict, and solutions to overcoming these challenges that advance human freedom.
• Business and the Good Society:
  • In addition to driving material well-being, entrepreneurs and businesses can foster trust, cooperation, personal growth, and moral development among business owners, employees, suppliers, and customers. The Business and the Good Society initiative supports research exploring the factors that promote commerce’s role in contributing to widespread human flourishing (within and beyond the economic realm), and factors that inhibit these effects.

Funding Information

• Grant amount: up to $15,000.

Ineligible Expenses

• IHS grants cannot support institutional overhead or indirect costs

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must be enrolled as full-time PhD students who have advanced to candidacy, or currently hold a postdoctoral fellowship
• Previous applicants and winners are welcome to apply
• Prior participation in IHS programs is not required
• The fellowship is open to students at any university, and international students are eligible; however, priority is given to applicants at top research institutions
• Preference will be given to research directly tied to IHS areas of focus.

For more information, visit IHS.