Dissertation Fieldwork Grant

In some cases, the Wenner-Gren Foundation will have supported your entire project. In other cases, we will be covering a portion of the work. Either way, we would like you to submit the following documents as soon as you have completed the research funded with our grant.

On February 8, 2023 the Foundation started using a new portal link for submitting final reporting requirements.  If you received your Award Notice email with your final reporting instructions prior to that date, you may email your Final Reports directly to Mark Ropelewski at mropelewski@wennergren.org as originally instructed. Otherwise, please use the information and link provided in your award notice. We will review your report and notify you when your grant is complete. If a week goes by and you still haven’t heard from us, please contact the Foundation to check on the status of your award. Be sure to update all contact information (mailing address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address, etc.) when you send the final report.

Please submit these documents to the Foundation upon the completion of the research phase supported by Wenner-Gren.  If you fail to do so and don’t offer a good excuse for the delay, we will designate your grant “closed-incomplete,” and you will become ineligible for further support from the Foundation.

We welcome photographs that capture the spirit of the project. Please only send us images that are ethically sourced. See Wenner-Gren’s Standards of Practice for Photographs and Videos. We would be grateful if you would submit the written part of your report in file formats compatible with Microsoft Word or Excel 2010. If you have any questions, please email Mark Ropelewski at mropelewski@wennergren.org.

Your final report summarizes the research phase supported by the Foundation and your findings to date. Tell us about the evidence you have collected.  Explain how your research findings have helped address your research question. How did your research enhance your understanding of the issues at stake in your work? Your name, address and grant number must appear on the first page. [Limit: 1500 words]

Your abstract should summarize your final report. We will publish it on our website. Please write it in the third person in a style clearly understandable to a nonspecialist. Focus on the research undertaken during this grant. [Limit: 200 words]

Please account only for funds received from Wenner-Gren. The format for the financial accounting should be similar to that used in the approved budget request. The Foundation must approve significant changes from the original request in advance. If there were other, more minor changes, please explain them fully as part of your accounting. The Foundation will ask you to reimburse us for unauthorized expenditures.  We will also ask you to return unexpended grant funds. We don’t need receipts. Instead, we suggest you retain them for your personal financial records.

Equipment. If any item of equipment purchased with Grant Funds at an original cost in excess of $2,500 still has monetary value at the end of the Grant Period, the grantee must choose among the following three alternatives: 1) return the resale value to the Foundation; 2) seek the Foundation’s permission to donate the equipment to an educational or scientific organization or community group, preferably in the country where the research was carried out; or 3) in cases of demonstrated need, seek the Foundation’s permission to retain the equipment, should its continued possession prove indispensable to the grantee’s ongoing research and scholarship.

Institutional Accountings. If you elected to have payment made and administered through your institution, you are responsible for verifying that the accounting is accurate and that the categories and amounts conform to your original budget request.  If the accounting is acceptable, you should sign it to indicate your approval.  If not, you must prepare a separate accounting as described above.

Your supervisor must provide a brief report evaluating the grantee’s research and progress towards degree and indicating the financial accounting is accurate to their knowledge. They can do this by sending this information via email or by using the online form, whichever is easier.

You can download the Supervisor’s Evaluation form here.

If we do not receive the supervisor’s evaluation, we will ask you to reach out to them.  We will attempt to follow up directly as well.  If we do not receive a response and/or they fail to send the evaluation in a timely manner, we may designate them as ineligible to serve as supervisor on future applications.