The Graduate Program in Development, based at the Watson Institute for International Studies, was recently awarded a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Over the next five years, this grant will fund graduate students in the social sciences for two-year periods with fellowships for interdisciplinary training.
NSF awards about 20 such grants each year, which fund five-year programs designed to promote cutting-edge interdisciplinary training and research, said Patrick Heller, professor of sociology, who started the Graduate Program in Development six years ago with colleagues. Last year, the program was one of two social science programs to get a graduate education grant from the NSF — these grants are most frequently awarded to programs in the physical and life sciences.
Heller now co-directs the program — which is open to all graduate students in anthropology, economics, political science and sociology — with Barbara Stallings, professor of international studies. "We're thrilled," he said, adding that Brown has never won this type of grant in the social sciences.
"What we're trying to do is give graduate students access to the type of training they wouldn't normally have access to if they're just taking courses within their own discipline," Heller said. "Within the traditional discipline-based Ph.D. programs, the incentives are all structured to take courses only within your discipline, to work only with faculty within your discipline, to only ask questions within your discipline, to only use methodologies within your discipline."
The program in development used to include three fellowships funded by the Watson Institute and the Graduate School, Heller said. This grant is now replacing that funding, creating five fellowships this year and 12 next year.
Doctoral programs generally last five or six years, and students receiving the fellowship awarded by NSF are funded for two years, Heller said.
Fellowship students are required to spend at least two summers in the field. Heller said he thinks that this is the most important part of the program. "This is all about doing field work. Getting out there, getting your feet wet, doing original data collection."
The research core of the program involves recognizing the pervasive problem of inequality in the developing world and realizing that researchers know very little about this problem, Heller said. The lack of understanding is due in part to a lack of good data, as well as a lack of understanding of the specific nature of inequality in different countries in the global south.
Heller said he hopes that this grant will strengthen the program. "We're hoping that the program will survive beyond this initial five year period," he said.
