December 2019
The Duke India Initiative (DII) is opening a call for applications to fund graduate (Ph.D.) student travel for scholarly activities related to India. Travel can be to present a paper at a conference, attend a workshop, conduct field research or other relevant activity. We envision supporting proposals in the $500-$2000 range subject to the following guidelines:
- Applicant must be full-time Ph.D. student at Duke.
- If travel is to attend a conference, student must have formal acceptance for a presentation at the event. If paper presentation or poster is pending acceptance, funding will be contingent upon formal acceptance of presentation.
- Travel must preferably occur between March 2020 and December 2020 (exceptions can be made).
- Travel does not have to be to India, but travel must be related to India and aligned with the mission of the DII (https://igs.duke.edu/units/duke-india-initiative).
All Duke full-time Ph.D. students are eligible to apply; DII encourage applications from Ph.D. students from all Duke schools and colleges. Applications by Master’s students will not be considered.
Deadline: 5 pm on January 15, 2020
Applications should include the following (items 1 through 2 should be a maximum of 2 pages, 11-point font, single line spacing and with 1” margin):
- Name, department/unit and contact information of applicant
- Description of the proposed travel activity
- Brief background and rationale for the travel
- If travel is for a conference or workshop, name of event and URL for the event
- Dates of travel
- Benefit to the individual
- Benefit to DII (how the activity contributes to advancing DII’s mission)
- Itemized budget with brief justification (0.5 page maximum). Airfare must be in economy class. Only direct costs are allowed.
- Overlapping activities (one half-page maximum): include a statement indicating whether or not this travel is already funded or pending funding (include source). If additional funding is necessary for the travel, indicate source of funding and amount.
- One-page CV for the applicant.
- Brief letter of support from the student’s adviser indicating how the travel will benefit the applicant.
Funding requests should be sent as one single pdf file to Rohini Thakkar (rohini.thakkar@duke.edu) no later than 5 pm on January 15, 2020. Use “DII Travel Funding Application” as the subject line. Receipt of proposals will be acknowledged within 48 h.
Students will be required to give a brief presentation at a DII event in Fall 2020 and deliver a brief report on their activities after completion of travel.