Faculty Funding

Weiser Faculty Grants
2009-11 Call for Proposals

The Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia (WCEE) and its affiliated units, the Center for European Studies-European Union Center (CES-EUC), Center for Russian and East European Studies (CREES), and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies (WCED), invite University of Michigan faculty who are associated with CES-EUC, CREES, and/or WCED to submit proposals for grants to support initiatives that will take place in 2009-11 and extend the missions of these centers. The deadline is rolling; initial allocations will be made for proposals received by November 6, 2009.

We will consider all applications dealing with historical or current articulations of cultural, economic, political, and social life in Europe and Eurasia, and we seek creative and innovative ideas that will enrich our community’s intellectual life. We particularly welcome projects that engage WCED’s thematic concern for emerging democracies, but awards are not limited to this thematic area. Successful proposals have taken a variety of formats (see the list below). We encourage inventive ideas, especially those that involve multiple faculty members. Awards will be based on proposal quality and the extent to which the proposed projects:

    1. engage European and Eurasian contextual expertise and/or WCED’s thematic and comparative
    concern for emerging democracies;
    2. promise long-term scholarly impact;
    3. have educational value for graduate and/or undergraduate students;
    4. have demonstrable benefits for enhancing the relationship between university work and wider
    public goods;
    5. extend international collaboration among individuals and institutions; and
    6. leverage other sources of support.

Applicants should review materials describing the Centers posted on the web (www.ii.umich.edu/wcee); for WCED-related projects, in particular, see www.ii.umich.edu/wced/about/framework. Funds may be requested for pilot projects/explorations leading to future work or to supplement existing projects. For example, faculty may seek funds to bring a colleague from the region or from an emerging democracy to participate in a class, conference, or ongoing workshop; initiate a thematic or geographic workshop series that draws on faculty and/or engages students; travel to Europe or Eurasia to design a research partnership with scholars and students from a particular institution; or work with NGOs to devise scholarly partnerships that will extend the public good. Awards will generally range from $500 to $5,000, depending on the number and character of successful proposals, and the breadth of each project’s impact.

Proposals should include: (1) a Weiser Center Funding Request Cover Sheet (writable PDF); (2) an explanatory statement no longer than 1,000 words; (3) a current CV for each principal organizer/participant; and (4) a budget detailing anticipated costs and all sources of support (pending and confirmed). We expect applicants will also explore other sources of support, where appropriate. Successful applicants will be asked to submit project descriptions for the WCEE/WCED websites and annual reports; a final report is expected as a condition of future support.

Please send proposals to: Marysia Ostafin, WCEE; 1080 S. University, Suite 3668; 1106; mostafin@umich.edu.

Weiser Faculty Grants, 2008-10

Over the past year, the Weiser Center for Europe and Eurasia has funded eight projects on a wide range of subjects, across the disciplines and covering our region.

Joshua Cole, History, for sequential conferences at U-M and the University of Minnesota, “From Colonial History to Post-Colonial Societies: (Re) placing the Maghrib at the Center of the Twentieth Century.” Alexander Knysh, Near Eastern Studies, for a workshop at U-M, “Teaching Islam in Eurasia.” Arland Thornton, Sociology, for a workshop in Brno, Czech Republic, “Freedom, Development, Family, and Demography.” Jindrich Toman, Slavic, for a project on the transformation of cultural initiatives in the Czech Republic from the 1990s to the present. Anca Trandafirescu, Architecture, for the installation of an inflatable monument commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Romanian revolution. Magdalena Zaborowska, American Culture/CAAS, for a collaborative community-based project in Sejny, Poland. William Zimmerman, Political Science; Zvi Gitelman, Political Science; and Mikhail Krutikov, Slavic/Judaic Studies; for a series of video-based seminars to be taught jointly with faculty at the European University at St. Petersburg. Geneviève Zubrzycki, Sociology, for a comparative research project on religion, nationalism and democratization in Poland and Quebec.