Applicant Profile

We will ask you to tell us about yourself.

  1. Applicant contact information. This includes your full legal name (first, middle, and surname), email address, and other contact details.

  2. Applicant educational history and current position. This includes your highest academic degree, the discipline of your degree, the year it was awarded, the institution where you received it, and your current academic appointment. We will also ask whether English is your and/or your institution’s primary scholarly language.

  3. Applicant personal information (optional). In an effort to promote greater equity in funding, we ask whether you are willing to share some confidential demographic information about yourself. We will remove any identifiers and analyze this data in the aggregate. This section of the application is entirely optional. Your answers to these questions will have no bearing on the success of your application. Our questions concern citizenship, gender identity, pronouns, sexual identity, disability, caregiving responsibilities, your parents’ highest level of education, income insecurity, race and ethnicity, Indigenous affiliation, and how you decided to apply for this program.

Project Information

  1. Project title. This should be 15 words or fewer and contain enough information to tell us what your project is about.

  2. Total amount requested in U.S. dollars. We will also ask you for a detailed budget.

  3. Three keywords or phrases that best describe your project.

  4. Your subdiscipline and regional or topical area.

  5. Project duration and location information, including the project start date. Your project can take place over a period longer than 12 months, and if you wish to do your project in phases, that’s just fine.  Your start date should fall after July 15 of the year in which you apply.

  6. Principle collaborators. These are the individuals who helped design the project and will work with you to ensure its success.

  7. Additional partners and collaborators. These can include academic collaborators and others responsible for carrying out crucial yet limited portions of your proposed project.

  8. A curriculum vitae for the applicant and any academic collaborators.

Abstract

Your abstract is a very important component of your application.  In language that an interested layperson could understand, you need to convey what’s at the heart of your project. Your abstract should convey the “why,” “what,” and “where” of your project while giving the reader a sense of the “how”—that is, the methods you and your collaborators will use to address the problem you’ve posed. Your abstract will be the shortest part of your proposal, but it will also be the hardest to write. You and your collaborators will need to have a very clear idea of your plans to do a good job. You probably should write it last.  [Limit: 200 words]

Budget

You will be asked to submit a detailed budget with your online application. Global Initiatives Grants range in size between $5,000 and $20,000.

It is important to include a detailed breakdown, showing how you estimated expenses in each category. Please explain in detail why you need what you are asking us for. We will not consider items that aren’t fully justified for funding.  Please note: the Wenner-Gren Foundation does not cover institutional overhead for any of its programs.

Project Description Questions

We will ask you to answer six project description questions. To make the best possible case for your work, it’s a good idea to use all the space provided.

Question 1: What need for capacity building will this project address? How will this project enhance the ability of anthropologists in your country, region, or community to have a greater impact within the discipline and the wider world? (Limit: 1000 words)

Question 2: What obstacles to capacity building exist in your country, region, or community? (Limit: 1000 words)

Question 3: Why isn’t this project eligible for funding under one of the Wenner-Gren Foundation’s other programs? (Limit: 250 words)

Question 4: What collaborations will be involved in helping you reach your goals? Who are your partners? What constituencies do they represent?  How did they decide to undertake this project? Who will be responsible for carrying it out? (Limit: 500 words)

Question 5: What will be the afterlife of this project, if successful? What lasting impact will it have? Could others use or adapt your project design to address similar challenges? If so, how? (Limit: 500 words)

Question 6: Will this project require ongoing financial support? If so, how will you secure this funding? (Limit: 500 words)

Optional URL for Access to Figures

You will have a chance to upload charts, maps, or graphs that you refer to in your response to the project description questions. Please use this option sparingly. Only include figures that are essential for communicating your plans and goals.

Bibliography

You should tailor your bibliography specifically for this proposal. Focus on the project’s objectives and and the broader conversations and debates that have inspired you and your collaborators.

You’ll have a chance to upload your bibliography on our online system. Please use a format compatible with Microsoft Word.

  1. Only list the sources that you cite in your resubmission statement or your responses to the project description questions. In-text citations should take the form of the authors’ name{s), year, and, where relevant, page number(s). Please format the citations as shown in these examples: (Baviskar 1995), (Friedner and Osborne 2015), (Nelson et al. 2017), (Zee 2020: 1068), (Baviskar 1995; Friedner and Osborne 2015; Nelson et al. 2017; Zee 2020: 1068).

  2. Your bibliography should not exceed 10 pages, using single-line spacing and 10-point font or larger.

  3. Make sure your bibliographic references are complete, listed in alphabetical order, and presented in one of the bibliographic formats found in major English language anthropological journals (such as Current Anthropology, Ethnos, or the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, among others). Whichever model you choose, be consistent throughout.