Summer Centennial Center Research Grants are supported by a set of thirteen endowed funds. Each grant fund has a unique set of aims, including supporting international scholarship, electoral scholarship, and scholarship on race and gender. Click on one of the fund names below to see detailed information about individual grant aims.

When you submit an application, you will be asked to select individual funds relevant to your research. We highly recommend that you apply widely and that you consider how your project might relate to multiple funds. Applicants are encouraged to note in their project proposal how their work might speak to the focus of multiple funds. For example, you may consider your project to be focused on gender and politics, but your work may draw on, build on, or have implications for legislative studies. You should identify and explain all of these ties and select all relevant funds in your application form. For further advice for preparing your Spring and Summer grant applications visit our tips page. 

Click here to learn more about its purpose and priorities. When identifying funding sources in your application, please review these descriptions carefully and select the fund(s) most relevant to your project. The Centennial Center provides up to $2,500 for individual research projects and up to $10,000 for events, workshops, and programs that offer broader disciplinary impact. The funds listed below include some examples of recently funded projects; please note this is merely illustrative and is not an exhaustive list. For more information on our previously funded projects, click here.

Applicant Eligibility

Applicants are not eligible for Centennial Center Research Grants if they:

• Received Centennial Center research funding within the past four years (including Spring, Summer, Winter, and Special Projects awards).
  For example: Applicants for 2025 funding are ineligible if they received a grant in 2021, 2022, 2023, or 2024.
• Propose project activities that begin prior to August 1, based on the June 15 application deadline.

Applicants are not eligible if they are part of a research team in which other co-authors or PIs are not themselves eligible for Summer Centennial Center funding.

Not Prioritized

Applications will receive lower priority if the applicant has received other APSA research funding (not including travel grants) in the past two years, including:

• Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants (DDRIG)
• MENA Alumni Research Grants
• Fund for Latino Scholarship
• Advancing Research Grants

Eligible Expenses

Grant funds may not be used for overhead or indirect costs.

Grants must support work that has not yet been completed.

Proposed work must fall within the discipline of political science.

Grant recipients must maintain an APSA membership throughout their grant period.

For graduate students and proposals for workshops or events exceeding $5,000 applicants must submit letters of recommendation through our application portal. 

Applications generally require the following materials (see individual application forms for exact details):

• Abstract (maximum 1/2 page, 12 pt Times New Roman font, single spaced)
• Project Statement (maximum 2.5 pages single spaced, 12 pt Times New Roman font). Should include: a description of the topic and the value/contribution of the proposed work; a summary of the basic ideas and hypotheses; the methodology to be used; a timeline for the project and the present status of your work (including IRB approval, if relevant); the relevance of your grant application to the grant fund(s) selected; and the materials that will be used.
• CV
• Budget (1 page maximum in spreadsheet, list, or table format). Budget should include detailed breakdown by budget category (e.g., travel, office supplies), and estimated cost per item in each budget category (e.g. flight, car rental, digital recorder). Actual expenses may vary up to 10% from proposed budget, and further revisions to budget may be made during active grant phrase with funder approval. If your project is receiving support from other sources, this should also be noted in your budget. Please not that we do not allow for indirect or overhead costs to be charged to any Centennial Center grants. 
• For Summer Centennial Center Research Grants: One letter of recommendation is required from graduate student applicants and for any applicants requesting workshop/event funding over $5000. Requests should be sent to letter writers via the grant application form.