Social Science Research Council

Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (DPDF) cycles are organized around two workshops, advising fellows from designing predissertation research to writing the dissertation proposal.  These workshops also help to map and build new research fields and cohorts of younger scholars.  Each  cycle,  sixty fellows, distributed across five research fields, attend their two workshops, one before, and one after their summer predissertation research.

The first workshop, in the Spring, prepares DPDF fellows for their summer research at sites around the world by relating their research to interdisciplinary and subdisciplinary niches with shared intellectual questions and methodological concerns. Grouped around intersecting methods, approaches, and sources, students engage in dialogue about research in the field, and are challenged to approach the various components of their research as part of a larger context. In their extensive reading and writing assignments, but also in their discussion sessions, DPDF fellows grapple with critical questions, carefully analyze the relationship between theory and method, pore over research design, and explore the practice of interdisciplinary and cross-regional comparison.

The second workshop, in the Fall, helps fellows to synthesize their summer research and to draft proposals for dissertation funding. The Fall workshop focuses on the mechanics and the philosophy of proposal writing. The workshop also challenges fellows to reflect on their summer research in ways that link meaningfully to their research field. Fellows come out of the second workshop with supportive networks, consisting of both mentors and cohorts of new scholars carrying out research in their fields, as well as intellectually mature dissertation proposals.

Beyond the workshops, students participate and interact on a secure DPDF website, where research directors post assignments and fellows engage in digital conversations about their research projects and proposals.