Dirksen Congressional Center Grants: Congressional Research Awards 2011

Deadline: All proposals must be received no later than March 1, 2011.

The Dirksen Congressional Center invites applications for grants to fund research on congressional leadership and the U.S. Congress. A total of up to $35,000 will be available in 2011. Awards range from a few hundred dollars to $3,500. Stipends will be awarded to individuals (not organizations) on a competitive basis. Grants will normally extend for one year.  In some circumstances, the Center will make more than one award to a single individual in consecutive years, but not more than three awards to the same person in a five-year period.

The competition is open to individuals with a serious interest in studying Congress. Political scientists, historians, biographers, scholars of public administration or American studies, and journalists are among those eligible. The Center encourages graduate students who have successfully defended their dissertation prospectus to apply and awards a significant portion of the funds for dissertation research. Applicants must be U.S. citizens who reside in the United States.

The awards program does not fund undergraduate or pre-Ph.D. study. Organizations are not eligible. Research teams of two or more individuals are eligible. No institutional overhead or indirect costs may be claimed against a Congressional Research Award.

We accept only proposals submitted via the online application form posted at http://www.dirksencenter.org/CRAForm/form.html. The form consists of the following elements and must not exceed nine pages when printed (excluding the Application Summary) --Application Summary, Reference Letter, Overhead Waiver Letter, Congressional Research Awards Project Description, Budget, and Curriculum Vita.

Applications which exceed the page limit and incomplete applications will NOT be forwarded to the screening committee for consideration.

All application materials must be received on or before March 1, 2011. Awards will be announced in April 2011.

Complete information about what kind of research projects are eligible for consideration, what could a Congressional Research Award pay for, application procedures, and how recipients are selected may be found at The Center's Web site: http://www.dirksencenter.org/print_grants_CRAs.htm. PLEASE READ THOROUGHLY. Frank Mackaman is the program officer - fmackaman at dirksencenter.org.

The Center, named for the late Senate Minority Leader Everett M. Dirksen, is a private, nonpartisan, nonprofit research and educational organization devoted to the study of Congress and its leaders. Since 1978, the Congressional Research Awards (formerly the Congressional Research Grants) program has paid out $813,071 to support 390 projects.