UPDATED (12/22/08):

Please note: successful proposals will center their interdisciplinary work around a collaboration including at least two people from two different departments or disciplines.

BCIS Harvard Graduate Student Awards
Interdisciplinary research and activities grants
2008-2009 Foci: Human Cooperation and Sociality; Internet & Democracy

The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University seeks to understand the effects of the networked environment on our society, economy, and polity, and to protect and advance the public interest based upon that understanding. As a university-wide research center, we are eager to foster innovative and collaborative research on related questions, and develop a robust community of scholars working on these issues. 

We are pleased to announce the BCIS Harvard Graduate Student Awards, intended to help Harvard University graduate students take interdisciplinary approaches to exploring Internet and society issues.

Financial awards of up to $10,000 will support research efforts conducted in the fall, spring, and summer of the 2008-2009 academic year. The foci of this year’s awards center on two interrelated research agendas: human cooperation and sociality, which reflects our growing sense of the centrality of social action as a core aspect of the Net; and the interaction of the Internet, democracy and the networked public sphere. The types of activities the BCIS Harvard Graduate Student Awards will support include, but are not limited to:

• Interdisciplinary projects: travel, research, or equipment for new or ongoing projects in one of the major areas of concentration for the year – interdisciplinary experimental, observational, and/or theoretical work on cooperation or on Internet and democracy.
  
  
• Interdisciplinary research teams: initiating, continuing, or completing collaborative research projects whose participants are students in at least two fields. For example, a computer science student and an evolutionary biology student might collaborate on a computationally instantiated platform to study cooperation online; or a political science student and an anthropology student might work to analyze discourse in a given set of websites.
  
  
• Research-directed reading groups: initiating reading groups with members from multiple departments, with the aim of producing interdisciplinary research ideas, review papers, or book reviews. A grant might cover reading material (e.g. a book per reading group member) and refreshments at meetings.
  

Successful proposals will center their interdisciplinary work around a collaboration including at least two people from two different departments or disciplines.  Successful applicants will be expected to produce a short write up and presentation, commensurate in scope with the size of the grant, of the project, and/or team funded.

Applicants funded at over $2,500 will be expected to participate in weekly workshops with the Cooperation Group or the Internet & Democracy Group, in Cambridge on Mondays or Wednesdays at 4-6p, respectively.  Awardees unable to attend either workshop will be expected to join Berkman’s weekly luncheon series Tuesdays at 1230p. 

Requirements: Applicants must be enrolled in a graduate program at Harvard University.

Deadlines: Applications for the spring and summer of 2009 will be accepted on a rolling basis.  We also welcome inquiries and applications for the 2009-2010 academic year. 

Please find the application form as an attachment below.

If you have any questions about the HGSA, please contact Becca Tabasky at HGSAwards@cyber.law.harvard.edu