Deadline: May 1

Grant Objective and Requirements:

Fichter Research Grants are awarded annually by ASR to members of the Association involved in promising sociological research on women in religion or on the intersection between religion and gender or religion and sexualities.  A total of $12,000 is available to be awarded annually, and this amount is usually distributed among several of the leading applications in the year’s competition. Dissertation research qualifies for funding, as does postdoctoral research by junior and senior scholars.  Although these grants are open to scholars who are pursuing or currently have a Ph.D. in a range of disciplines, the proposed research must be sociological in nature.  Applicants must also be members of the Association for the Sociology of Religion at the time of application.

What the Research Grants Do and Do Not Cover: 

The Fichter Grants cover only direct research expenses, such as: (1) transportation expenses to conduct research; (2) the cost of hiring a research assistant or transcriber; (3) computer software packages that are not typically provided by a college or university (e.g., specialized statistical software packages).  They do NOT cover:  (1) secondary costs, such as facilities and administrative costs (i.e., overhead expenses) or tuition for students; (2) salary, replacement salary, summer stipends or fringe benefits for the Principal Investigator;  (3) membership dues to academic societies including ASR; (4) conference registration fees or travel costs to conferences; (5) items that can reasonably be expected to be provided by a college or university, such as computers, books, commonly used software packages, etc.; (5) any other costs which the Fichter Grant Committee and/or ASR deems to be excluded.  When Fichter Grant recipients must travel to conduct their research, Fichter funds can be used to pay for up to 50% of their food and non-alcoholic beverage expenses.  Any equipment approved by the Fichter Grant Committee for purchasing using Fichter Grant funds shall be considered the property to ASR and shall be sent to the ASR Executive Office upon completion of the research.

Application Procedure: 

Applications should include the following elements bound together in a single MS Word or PDF document:

1) A proposal of not more than five double-spaced pages (1,250 words) which outlines the rationale and plan of research. It should have a descriptive title for the research project (e.g., “A Examination of Women’s Leadership Role in Two Catholic Parishes”), present a clear research question, review previous research and theory that forms the background for the study, describe the social scientific research method(s) that will be used to carry out the research as well as a research timetable, and summarize succinctly what the research aims to discover.

2) A detailed, one-page budget.  It should indicate the items for which the applicant is seeking funding, and next to each item, the amount it will cost (in U.S. dollars) and the exact purposes for which it will be used. An itemized budget is necessary to enable the Fichter Committee to determine if the budget is reasonable and for decisions concerning partial funding.  Applicants are advised to NOT include items in their proposed budget that ASR does not cover (see above).

3) An updated curriculum vitae, including a statement of his/her qualifications to carry out the proposed research, and a current email address at which he/she can be contacted during the summer months.

Simultaneous submissions to other grant competitions are permissible if the applicant is explicit about which budget items in the Fichter grant proposal do not overlap items in other submitted proposals.  In the case of simultaneous submissions, please provide the Fichter Grant Committee with the names and contact information of these other foundations or associations to which you are applying.

All applications, including the proposal, budget, c.v., and statement of qualifications, must be in English and submitted electronically as a single MS Word or PDF document to the Chair of the Fichter Grant Committee by May 1.

Click here for more information.