Cultural Anthropology Program - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants — U.S. National Science Foundation funding opportunity
U.S. National Science Foundation · Federal agency

Cultural Anthropology Program - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants

The primary objective of the Cultural Anthropology Program is to support basic scientific research on the complexities of human social and cultural variability. Anthropological research spans a wide gamut, and contempora...

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Deadline Fixed Location Alabama Type grant Level Federal Open posted Jun 6, 2025
✦ AI Summary
  • Who can apply: Federal-level applicants (see eligibility for details).
  • Funding amount: total funding pool ~$800,000.
  • Issued by: U.S. National Science Foundation.
How was this generated?

The “key facts” mode pulls structured fields directly from the official source posting (amount, deadline, eligibility tags). The AI mode adds a short plain-English narrative on top, generated from the same source. Always verify with the agency before applying.

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Deadline
Fixed
Total pool
$800k

About this opportunity

The primary objective of the Cultural Anthropology Program is to support basic scientific research on the complexities of human social and cultural variability. Anthropological research spans a wide gamut, and contemporary cultural anthropology is an arena in which diverse research traditions and methodologies are valid. Recognizing the breadth of the field's contributions to science, the Cultural Anthropology Program welcomes proposals for empirically grounded, theoretically engaged, and methodologically sophisticated research in all sub-fields of cultural anthropology. Because the National Science Foundation's mandate is to support basic research, the NSF Cultural Anthropology Program does not fund research that takes as its primary goal improved clinical practice, humanistic understanding, or applied policy. A proposal that applies anthropological methods to a social problem but does not propose how that problem provides an opportunity to make a theory-testing and/or theory expanding contribution to anthropology will be returned without review. Program research priorities include, but are not limited to, research that increases our understanding of: Socio-cultural drivers of critical anthropogenic processes such as cover poverty Resilience and robustness of socio-cultural systems Scientific principles underlying altruism globalization Variability and change in kinship and family norms and practices General cultural and social principles underlining the drivers of specific health outcomes and disease transmission Social violence Origins of complexity in socio-cultural systems Language and culture: orality and cognition Human variation through empirically grounded ethnographic descriptions Mathematical and computational models of sociocultural systems such as social network analysis, agent-based models, multi-level models, and modes that integrate agent-based simulations and geographic information systems (GIS) As part of its effort to encourage and support projects that explicitly integrate education and basic research, CA provides support to enhance and improve the conduct of doctoral dissertation projects designed and carried out by doctoral students enrolled in institutions of higher education who are conducting scientific research that enhances basic scientific knowledge. As part of this effort, CA discourages projects that return students to a previous site of employment or volunteer work unless there is a strong justification for the scientific merits of that particular site.

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Citation details

Source systemgrants.gov
Source ID359483
PostedJun 6, 2025

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