Social Sciences Graduate Student

Research Assistance & Grant Opportunities

Getting Started

Sign up for your department’s grant-writing class. You can reference helpful materials on writing grants on the Social Sciences web site.

Start by asking yourself some basic questions:

            Do I need additional supervised research training?

            Do I want to do research supervised by a mentor?

            Do I want to undertake independent research?

If you are unsure of the answers to these questions, you might talk to colleagues in your field or at a similar level of career development.

Explore grant resources

You also can learn a great deal by searching funding-source databases. Each funding source will have different submission deadlines and criteria. Listed by department together grant funding sources

Find grant opportunities

You also can learn a great deal by searching funding-source databases, such as those listed in the search databases area of this web site. Each funding source will have different submission deadlines and criteria.Find grant opportunities

• Contact the Government Grants Coordinator in the Division of Social Sciences.
• The Social Sciences Development office has compiled a cursory list of graduate student fellowships and scholarships. You can click on the department fellowships/scholarships link that applies to you and search through the list of fellowships and scholarships that have been researched. Contact the funder to make sure the deadlines are still applicable.

  Anthropology

  Community Studies

  Economics

  Education

  Environmental Studies

  General Social Sciences

  Latin American and Latino Studies

  Politics/Legal Studies

  Psychology

  Sociology

• Sign up for e-mail notifications from funding agencies.

Apply for grants

After you have found a grant you want to apply for, find a recent copy of a successful grant proposal that is the same kind of RFP you are writing, written for the same funder. You can find this information on the funder’s web site or call the program officer for that RFP. You can then use the successful grant proposal as a model for the grant you will be writing.

Contact UCSC Office of Sponsored Projects as soon as possible to comply with their requirements.