Application Deadline: January 15th 2018
The Understanding Violent Conflict (UVC) program of the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) invites research grant applications from postdoctoral researchers, policy analysts, and practitioners working on the drivers of conflict at universities and nongovernmental organizations.
The Conflict Research Fellowship (CRF) offers yearlong support for experienced scholars (based at a university or NGO). The CRF is part of the Conflict Research Programme (CRP), a four year, UK Department of International Development funded research program based at the London School of Economics and Political Science that investigates the drivers of violent conflict in five cases: Somalia, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, and Syria.
The program focuses on ways in which the political economy of public authority helps to explain the persistence and spread of violence. Successful fellowship candidates will need to examine how different interventions affect violent conflict and/or the risk of renewed violent conflict; analyze “what works” to counter drivers of conflict; and explore the contextual factors that affect the efficacy of such interventions, including the linkages among international, national, state, and local level dynamics. Successful candidates will contribute to the overall analysis of conflict through case studies of external interventions in four areas prioritized by the program:
- Civil society support (including multi-scalar peacemaking and peacebuilding activities, support for reconciliation, and community-level dialogue and mediation)
- Security and Justice Sector reform (including DDR/RR, stabilization, regional security networks/arenas, transitional, formal and customary justice)
- Strengthening public authority and legitimacy, including at sub-national levels (the political marketplace, the effects of patronage networks on governance, governance promoting interventions, decentralization and anti-corruption activities)
- Resource management (including settlement of land and real estate disputes, governance frameworks, and the role of natural resource competition in shaping public authority)
Benefits:
Grants are awarded on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis and are intended to support three months of field-based research, whereas a visiting fellowship can be supported for a maximum of 6 months. Up to 7-9 individual grants of a maximum of £17,000 will be awarded. Women and nationals of the five country cases are strongly encouraged to apply.
Eligibility
- Candidates must be postdoctoral scholars, policy analysts, or practitioners based at a university or nongovernmental organization with at least three years of field-based experience since the completion of the PhD (or researchers with equivalent experience who have published one book or two peer-reviewed academic articles).
- Applications will be considered for the following purposes only: funding to support fieldwork, teaching buy-out at your home institution, or a visiting appointment at a US or European university.
- Research projects must focus on the core countries of the CRF: Somalia, South Sudan, DRC, Iraq, or Syria.
- Applicants must also be available to attend a preparatory workshop in New York within the first two months of their fellowship period, and a capstone workshop towards the end of the year-long fellowship.
- At the end of the fellowship period, recipients must produce an original research output that is suitable for publication in a peer-reviewed academic journal.
Application Process
All applications must be uploaded through the online portal.
For More Information:
Visit the Official Webpage of the SSRC 2018/2019 Conflict Research Fellowship
