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Summer Research Grant

Supporting research toward a PAA paper proposal

Deadline

The submission deadline is Friday, March 29, 2024.

Overview

MPRC SUMMER RESEARCH Grants are awards intended to support MPRC graduate student affiliates who could benefit from summer research time or other research resources to complete work on a paper or extended abstract to submit to the Population Association of America (PAA) Annual Conference for their September deadline. (If the paper is accepted for the PAA Conference - either as a session presentation or as a poster - the awardee will be eligible for an MPRC travel allowance to attend the conference next Spring.)

Students will normally have completed two years of study at UMD, but exceptions may be made when the student can demonstrate readiness for executing an independent research paper for external presentation (for example, the student may have arrived at UMD with already a masters from another institution, or with employment experience involving research).  Note that since the objective of the Suzanne Bianchi summer award is to prepare a proposal or paper for the following PAA, thus it is necessary that at this time they are still enrolled at UMD.

MPRC Summer Research Grants carry a total award amount of $4,000 which may be spent on summer stipend or on other research resources (such as for data purchases or travel related to their research objectives).

Proposal

No more than two (2) single-spaced text pages, 11-point Arial font, 1” margins

Include the following in your proposal :

  1. Draft title of planned PAA paper
  2. Research Question, including citation of the main previous studies (up to 5) that have addressed this or related research questions.
  3. Data and Analyses, including planned data source(s) and analyses. Include citations to support your analytical methods or data suitability (up to 3).
  4. Preliminary Analyses, describing work you have already begun, if any, with these or related data sources on or related to the research question. Up to one table of preliminary results if useful (not required) - place after references (it is not counted in the 2 page limit).
  5. References cited in above sections (not included in the two-page limit).

Eligibility Criteria

  • MPRC graduate student affiliate status for at least one semester previous to submission (requires MPRC Associate Sponsor, normally the student’s advisor)
  • Must be in good standing as per the MPRC minimum event attendance requirement.
  • Since the objective of the Suzanne Bianchi summer award is to prepare a proposal or paper for the following PAA, thus it is necessary that at this time they are still enrolled at UMD.
  • Normally awards will not be made to students who already have other departmental funding for their own research, though the MPRC Summer Research Grant could be additional to up to half-time appointments such as a research assistantship.

Award Requirements

  • Pre-award meeting with MPRC Research Grant Coordinator and / or Committee (early summer)
  • Mid-summer progress meeting with MPRC Research Grant Coordinator
  • Summer-end: draft abstract (maximum 500 Words) outlining research question, data and method, and results and conclusions.
  • September: Submission of paper (or extended abstract) for next year's Annual Meeting of the Population Association of America (PAA)
  • Pre-PAA meeting presentation at MPRC next Spring (if accepted).

Students must submit their application by Friday, March 29, 2024. A copy of the application will be automatically forwarded to the student's MPRC Faculty Associate sponsor.

A complete nomination package must include the following:

  1. Proposal (see description above);
  2. The student’s curriculum vitae.

Further information

If you have questions please feel free to contact .