Program in Early Cultures

Grants

Our support targets the study of pre-modern cultures and societies through any academic discipline. 

Ad Hoc Research Grants for Graduate Students

  • Intended to support work to be undertaken during the fall or spring, or unexpected needs arising during the academic year. 
  • Grants typically range from $300-$500 
  • Requests for more significant funding will be considered, particularly those directed toward organizing and hosting relevant workshops or conferences in 2025-6 and beyond.
  • Please keep in mind that PEC accepts requests twice yearly. To keep informed about upcoming calls, please sign up for our Newsletter.

Event Funding for Graduate Students, Postdocs, and Faculty

  • Intended to support relevant projects and events, including course-related programming, conference support, and graduate course development.
  • PEC will also consider larger proposals for programming developed by two or more people from different units, for one semester or a full year, to run a larger scale, theme-related program involving regular seminars, speakers, small or large conference support, special events support, performances, exhibits.
  • For applications to hold events and conferences, we aim to provide 100% of the internal funding for a small number of events squarely located within PEC's remit, rather than partial funding for multiple events with many sponsors.

Funding for Student Groups

  • Intended to provide block funding to support the activities of graduate-student-led groups with research themes relevant to PEC's remit. Groups should involve students from multiple departments; they may plan speaker visits, graduate work-in-progress sessions, reading groups, field trips, and more! Applications will be accepted in the Spring round for the following academic year. Groups may apply for up to $2000 per academic year to cover multiple events, thus freeing them from the need to ask separately for each individual event. At the end of the funded year we will require a report on the money spent and events held.
  • One group leader should fill out the form in their own name. The budget should specify how many events of what kind you plan to hold, give some examples, and provide a rough budget estimate for each. It is not necessary to have a definite plan for each event. It should also outline the group's leadership structure, continuity plans (what happens if the group leader is unavailable? If this is intended to be an ongoing group, how are you going to find new leaders in the future, and what is the handover plan?), and a list of students who have expressed interest, with their departments.
  • We prefer to provide the majority of the internal funding for groups squarely within PEC's remit, rather than partial funding for groups with many sponsors. 

For help with planning your proposed event, please visit our planning resources page

Information regarding the current grant and funding round can be found on the Fall 2024 Funding & Grant Round page.

Questions? Contact Jonathan_Conant@Brown.edu or Lauren_Arsenault@Brown.edu for additional information and assistance completing your application.