University of North Carolina Center for Global Initiatives

Purpose

This U.S. Department of Education program provides grants to colleges and universities to fund individual doctoral students who conduct research in other countries, in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of six to 12 months.

This grant is available to Ph.D. candidates who wish to engage in full-time dissertation research abroad in modern foreign languages and area studies. Projects focusing on Western Europe are not eligible for funding. The grant provides travel expenses, maintenance allowance for the grantee and his/her dependents, books and other research-related expenses and health insurance.

Eligibility

Ph.D. students from all departments are eligible if the focus of the dissertation has an area studies and/or language component. Field work in English is generally not supported.

Specifically, a student is eligible to receive a fellowship if he or she:

• Is a citizen or national of the United States or is a permanent resident of the United States;
• Is a graduate student in good standing at an institution of higher education in the United States who, when the fellowship begins, is admitted to candidacy in a doctoral program in modern foreign languages and area studies at that institution;
• Is planning a teaching career in the United States upon graduation; and
• Possesses adequate skills in the language(s) necessary to carry out the dissertation project.

Please review the US Department of Education DDRA Program FAQ before beginning an application.

Competition Priorities FY13

The FY13 competition targets one absolute priority and two competitive preference priorities:

Absolute Priority: A research project that focuses on one or more of the following geographic areas: Africa, East Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands, South Asia, the Near East, Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia, and the Western Hemisphere (excluding the United States and its territories). Please note that applications that propose projects focused on the following countries are not eligible: Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, or Vatican City.

Competitive Preference Priority 1 (extra 5 points): A research project that focuses on any of the 78 languages selected from the U.S. Department of Education's list of Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTLs), as follows:
Akan (Twi-Fante), Albanian, Amharic, Arabic (all dialects), Armenian, Azeri (Azerbaijani), Balochi, Bamanakan (Bamana, Bambara, Mandikan, Mandingo, Maninka, Dyula), Belarusian, Bengali (Bangla), Berber (all languages), Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Cebuano (Visayan), Chechen, Chinese (Cantonese), Chinese (Gan), Chinese (Mandarin), Chinese (Min), Chinese (Wu), Croatian, Dari, Dinka, Georgian, Gujarati, Hausa, Hebrew (Modern), Hindi, Igbo, Indonesian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kashmiri, Kazakh, Khmer (Cambodian), Kirghiz, Korean, Kurdish (Kurmanji), Kurdish (Sorani), Lao, Malay (Bahasa Melayu or Malaysian), Malayalam, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Oromo, Panjabi, Pashto, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese (all varieties), Quechua, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala (Sinhalese), Somali, Swahili, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Tigrigna, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uyghur/Uigur, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Wolof, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu.

Competitive Preference Priority 2 (extra 5 points): Research projects that are proposed by applicants using advanced language proficiency in one of the 78 LCTLs listed in Competitive Preference Priority 1 in their research and who are in the fields of economics, engineering, international development, global education, mathematics, political science, public health, science, or technology

Invitational Priority: We encourage applications from minority-serving institutions as well as other institutions that promote the participation of students from minority backgrounds in research abroad projects in foreign languages and international studies.

Click here for the full announcement.

Application Instructions

Applicants submit a proposal electronically through G5, the Department of Education's Grants Management system.  It is recommended that applicants format their narrative proposal using the Fulbright-Hays Technical Review Form as a guide.

STEP #1: Complete this interest and eligibility form
STEP #2: Review FAQ
STEP #3: Align narrative proposal with the Technical Review Committee FORM
STEP #4: Submit online application by May 21, 2013

UNC Project Director Contact Information

Beth-Ann Kutchma
Senior Program Officer, Center for Global Initiatives