Other Criteria
Taxation
HFG awards research grants to individuals for individual projects. However, a grantee may
choose to have these funds administered through her institution for reasons of convenience and/or
necessity. If the grantee so directs, the grant will be administered and accounted for by the
institution on behalf of the grantee in accordance with the budget prepared by the grantee and
included with the application (subject to revisions approved by the foundation). Please see the
section below entitled “Individual vs. Institutional Applications” for detailed instructions.
Regardless of whether the grant funds are paid to the grantee directly or paid to an institution on
behalf of the grantee, the grantee may be liable for taxes on funds awarded, depending on locality,
tax status, timing, nature of the award, etc. Applicants should consult their own tax advisors to
determine the tax consequences to them of receiving a research grant.
Education and Citizenship
Applicants for a research grant may be citizens of any country. While almost all recipients of
our research grant possess a Ph.D., M.D., or equivalent degree, there are no formal degree
requirements for the grant. The grant, however, may not be used to support research undertaken as
part of the requirements for a graduate or doctoral program. Applicants need not be affiliated with
an institution of higher learning, although most are college or university professors.
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Budget Guidelines
Proposals should be accompanied by a precise budget. Please refer to the budget worksheet at
hfg.org/rg/hfg_budget.pdf. This should be 1) downloaded, 2) completed and saved, and 3) then
uploaded in the Budget section of the application. Your budget should cover only one year;
applicants who are applying for two years of support will submit a detailed second-year budget if an
award was granted for the first year. In addition to the budget worksheet, you will need to submit a
budget explanation that justifies each item in the worksheet.
Requests will be considered for salaries, employee benefits, fieldwork, research assistantships,
supplies and equipment, essential secretarial and technical help, and other items necessary to the
completion of a project. The foundation does not supply funds for overhead costs of institutions,
travel to professional meetings, self-education, elaborate fixed equipment, dissemination of research
findings, or—to repeat—graduate-degree research (except for salary for research assistants or funds
awarded through our Dissertation Fellowship, described later). The foundation will not consider
applications for the support of meetings or conferences.
As noted above, the majority of grants from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation range
between $15,000 and $40,000 per year, for one or two years, depending on the nature of the
research. The size of our grants says something about the research we support. We aim to attract
applications for projects that can be done within that range, and we expect budget requests to match
the specific needs of the project. We will not contribute a portion of costs to a project with other
funding unless an independent "Guggenheim component" of the research can be identified and
shown to make a difference to what can be accomplished by the larger project, which must be fully
funded otherwise. Be aware that many solid pieces of research are proposed to us each year that can
be carried out well within these budget limitations; projects that require significantly more money are
simply not appropriate for funding by this foundation.
Salaries
In general, a salary is only justified if paid work will be given up to free up time for the specific
research project proposed to us. In these cases, we need to know the applicant’s base salary, the
duties she is expected to fulfill, what she will give up in duties and salary to conduct the research
proposed, and how that relates to the salary requested from us.
Here are some general guidelines to follow when asking for salary support:
• We generally do not fund projects that require an investigator’s full-time effort, except in
cases of extended fieldwork, archival research, sustained writing projects, or other intensive
work.
• We will consider requests for supplementation to a sabbatical half-salary, up to what we
allow.
• Requests for 2%, 5%, or even 10% of a researcher’s time appear to add nothing to the active
scholarly engagement available for a project, especially when these requests come from
university professors whose salaries already cover time for research.
• As most university professors are expected to conduct research during the time they do not
teach, summer salaries are not a priority for the foundation and will be considered only with
an adequate explanation for why the project cannot be conducted without such
compensation.
• Request either salary or a per diem allowance during fieldwork, but not both.
• Applicants without a salaried job should request a salary commensurate with local rates for
someone with comparable qualifications.
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Fieldwork
Since the foundation prefers to make contributions exclusively to the direct costs of research, we
commonly fund the costs of fieldwork, including travel, living expenses, local research assistance,
insurance, transcription costs, necessary software/equipment, visa fees, gifts/remuneration for
informants or survey participants, and other relevant expenditures. As with any other requests,
these items should be thoughtfully justified:
• Requests for airfare/travel expenses should be accompanied, if possible, by documentation
of the average price for economy class tickets.
• When requesting funds for vehicle rental/local transportation, please give an approximation
of how much these services will cost per day.
• Per diem living expenses should represent an honest estimate of the costs of the research
proposed. If an applicant is not familiar with the average living expenses where she will be
working, she might consult with regional experts. The U.S. Department of State web site
provides per diem rates by country, and the web site of the U.S. General Services
Administration (GSA) provides per diem rates by U.S. city. (These figures should be taken
as guiding rather than binding.)
Research Assistance and Secretarial Help
We support research projects conducted by individuals, or a few principal investigators at most,
with student assistance or fieldwork help when necessary, for specific tasks appropriate to assistants.
If students are substantial collaborators on the project, we expect to review each one's c.v. and list of
publications, as with other professional collaborators. Student assistants must be paid only for the
work they do, and at reasonable rates for junior researchers. We do not contribute to tuition or
other university fees related to their status as students. Please do not try to hide tuition costs under
the category of "benefits."
Fees for "consultants" are generally not allowed. If the principal investigator cannot do the
work without substantial expert advice, then we consider that she may not be the right person for
the project.
It is appropriate to ask for secretarial help if a research project entails clerical tasks that are
specific to that project. If so, describe that work and include a c.v. for the person to be employed.
General office support, calculated as a percentage of a secretary's regular salary, is not an allowable
budget item.
Equipment and Supplies
Ask only for equipment and supplies needed for this research project. While not all requests are
as clearly fictional as the recent application with a budget line of $1,000 for "pens, pencils, etc.," we
do not consider general office supplies to be essential to a research project. Nor do we want to
supply funds for a personal computer or any other equipment unless it is necessary to the project
and unavailable otherwise. These restrictions exist in order to maximize the number of projects that
can be supported.
Application Procedure
Applications are submitted online. The application link can be found on our web site, hfg.org.
The direct address is https://www.grantinterface.com/hfg/Common/LogOn.aspx. (Applications
using our older form, a printable PDF and its accompanying guidelines, will still be accepted if they
arrive at the foundation’s office by the deadline.) Applicants first create a login account and then
may access the online application. The deadline for submission is the end of August 1
(midnight, EST). Late applications will not be considered.
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A. Project Title
Complete all questions in this section that are applicable to your proposed project. Some
questions are required; these are marked with an asterisk (*). If your project has more than one
Principal Investigator, you will enter information about the Co-PIs in Section C of the
application. Please see "Additional Notes," at the end of these guidelines.
B. Abstract and Survey
Enter an abstract by typing or pasting text. (Note the length limit.) The abstract should be an
informative but succinct description of the project, including its relevance to aggression and/or
violence. The survey questions--about the topics, time period, and geographic region of your
project--are for statistical purposes only; this information does not affect our evaluation of the
application.
C. Co-Principal Investigators
If there more than one Principal Investigators, enter the Co-PIs here.
D. Budget
Please consult "Budget Guidelines," above.
E. Budget Justification
Upload a document explaining the need for and planned use of the funds requested for each
item in each category of the worksheet completed in D.
F. Personnel
Upload a single file containing the curricula vitae and lists of relevant publications for the
principal investigator(s) and all professional personnel. Do not exceed two pages for each
person.
G. Research Plan
Upload a document presenting the specific aims of the project and discuss the background and
significance of the proposed work. Describe the methods and procedures of the research and
the means by which the results will be analyzed and interpreted. Indicate your familiarity with
the relevant scholarly literature and explain how your project will complement or improve upon
it. Research plans are typically about 15 double-spaced pages (not including references listed in a
bibliography or footnotes).
H. Other Support
Describe facilities and resources already available for the proposed research. Also list the title,
source, dollar amount, period of time for funding expected or being sought for this project from
other sources during the period of the grant requested, and the expected notification dates,
including actual or probable publisher's advances. If no other applications have been or will be
submitted, please so state.
I. Protection of Subjects
Explain what steps will be taken to protect the rights and welfare of any human subjects who
might be involved in the research. If non-human animals are to be used in the project, discuss
how the animals will be cared for so that they will not suffer unnecessary discomfort, pain, and
injury. If this concern is not applicable to the project, please so state.
J. Referee Comments
Applicants should send a copy of the application to each of two referees, chosen for their
relevant expertise. For each referee, please enter an email address and click "Compose Email" to
send them a message from you asking them to be a referee. They will receive a second email
from our system with a link for uploading their letter. Referees should give us their opinion of
the merit of the proposal, the procedures involved, and the applicant’s ability to complete the
project successfully. The referees may not be involved in the project directly. The letters must be
uploaded by August 15.
K. Electronic Signature
Completing this section is equivalent to hand signing your application.
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Additional Notes
Here we provide some guidance on those items that tend to cause the most confusion. Of
course, you should feel free to contact the foundation before submitting a proposal if you have a
concern not addressed in these guidelines.
Multiple Principal Investigators
If the proposal involves collaboration of two or more principal investigators, a single member of
the research team, the one filling out the application, becomes the primary contact. He or she will
serve as the chief correspondent regarding the application’s completeness and notification of the
foundation’s decision on the proposal.
When completing Section A, the primary contact should list his/her contact information.
Additional PIs should include their contact information in their CVs. Only the primary contact
completes Section K. Electronic Signature.
Individual vs. Institutional Applications
We provide a place in Section A to indicate whether you are applying as an individual or through
an institution. The foundation has no preference as to whether the applicant submits the proposal
as an individual or has the host institution submit it and administer it on the applicant's behalf
through an office of sponsored research or equivalent. .
If applying as an individual, do not complete the Institutional Contact information within Section
A.
If applying as an institutional applicant, please do provide that information. The contact person
usually will be a department head, research coordinator, or representative of a university’s office of
sponsored research. We will cc the contact on matters of the application’s completeness and to
notify of the foundation’s decision on the proposal. If the grant is approved, this person will serve
as the administrator of the awarded funds, ensuring that budgets are kept up-to-date and changes in
the status of the project are made known to the foundation.
