The Smith Richardson Foundation’s International Security and Foreign Policy Program is pleased to announce its annual grant competition to support the research and writing of a book by young scholars and policy thinkers on American foreign policy, international relations, international security, military policy, and diplomatic and military history.  The Foundation will award at least three research grants of $60,000 each. Within the academic community, this program supports junior or adjunct faculty, research associates, and post-docs who are engaged in policy-relevant research and writing. Within the think tank community, the program supports members of the rising generation of policy thinkers who are focused on U.S. strategic and foreign policy issues. 

Each grant will be paid directly to, and should be administered by, a properly accredited 501(c)(3) institution. It should be the academic institution or think tank with which the applicant is affiliated.

Procedure
An applicant must submit a research proposal of a maximum of ten pages that includes the following five sections:

• a one-page executive summary;
• a brief (approx. 250 words) description of the policy issue or the problem that the proposed book will examine;
• a description (approx. 2,500-3,000 words) of the background and body of knowledge on the issue to be addressed by the book, citing relevant literature;
• a description (approx. 1,000-1,500 words) of the applicant’s qualifications and methods (e.g., research questions, research strategy, analytical approach, tentative organization of the book, etc.); and
• a brief (approx. 250 words) explanation of the implications of the prospective findings of the research for the policy community.

Proposal Evaluation Criteria:
Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria: the relevance of potential analysis and findings to current and future foreign and security policy issues; the potential of the project to innovate the field and to contribute to academic or policy literature on the topic; the degree to which research questions and analytical methods are well defined; the degree to which the project will develop valuable new data or information through field work, archival work, or other methods; and the applicant’s publication record. The objective of the Strategy and Policy Fellows program is to identify and develop young promising scholars, policy thinkers, and analysts. The recipients are likely to be under the age of 40. There is, however, no formal age requirement.

Eligibility:
An applicant must have a Ph.D. by the time of the deadline, preferably in Political Science, Public Policy, Policy Analysis, International Political Economy, or History.  The application must be submitted by the institution at which he or she holds a full-time position and be accompanied by a letter from the institution’s representative who is authorized to accept the grant on behalf of the institution. The applicant should also explain how he or she meets all of these requirements in a cover letter to the proposal.
The proposal should be written in a regular 12-point font, with one-inch margins.

Deadline:
The Foundation must receive all Strategy and Policy and Fellows proposals by 12:00 midnight, EST, June 15, 2012. This deadline will be strictly enforced. Applicants will be notified of the Foundation’s decision by October 31, 2012.

Please e-mail your proposal to strategyfellows@srf.org as a single document, ideally in PDF or Microsoft Word .doc/.docx format, or mail an unstapled hard copy to:



Strategy and Policy Fellows Program
Smith Richardson Foundation
60 Jesup Road
Westport, CT 06880

If you have any further questions, please contact the Foundation via email at strategyfellows@srf.org.  No phone inquiries please.