Institute at Brown for Environment and Society

Opportunities for Graduate Students

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Opportunities for Graduate Students

IBES Graduate Research, Training & Travel Awards

Now accepting applications for 2026. Apply by January 31 at 5 PM.

The Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES) invites applications from affiliated graduate students and postdoctoral scholars for research, training, and travel (RTT) awards. Postdoctoral scholars whose primary faculty mentors are members of the core IBES faculty are eligible to apply. Graduate students must be affiliated with IBES to apply. Students who are not already affiliated can request IBES affiliation here. 

The RTT program provides discretionary funds to IBES-affiliated graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to enhance their scholarly research or teaching activities. There are no limits on the types of activities that can be supported, but applicants must demonstrate that RTT funds are necessary, and preference will be given to applications that are likely to catalyze a significant advance in the scholarly, research or teaching activities of the applicant that are not otherwise funded, and for which other sources of funding are not available.
 

Proposal requirements

All proposals must conform for format, content, length, and naming requirements. Applications must be prepared using Arial (not Arial narrow), Courier New, or Palatino Linotype at a font size of 10 points or larger, Times New Roman at a font size of 11 points or larger, or Computer Modern family of fonts at a font size of 11 points or larger. A font size of less than 10 points may be used for mathematical formulas or equations, figures, tables, or diagram captions and when using a Symbol font to insert Greek letters or special characters. Other fonts not specified above, such as Cambria Math, may be used for mathematical formulas, equations, or when inserting Greek letters or special characters. Proposals must use single-spaced line spacing. All margins must be 1 inch, and no information may appear in the margins. Paper size must be 8.5 by 11 inches. The proposal must not exceed 2 pages. References, if included, count toward the page limit. 

The request must be clear to a general academic audience, must explain why the funds are necessary and not available through other means, and must explain how the funds will lead to significant advance in the scholarly, research or teaching activities of the applicant. The request must include the following sections: background and motivation; nature of funding request; expected outcomes; timeline and deliverables; budget and justification. All applicants must affirm that no other funds are available to support this research, and must document that funding requests to other relevant Brown University sources have been made when available and relevant (e.g. travel funds from department and/or graduate school sources for which the applicant is eligible). The proposal must be submitted as a single Microsoft Word file with the following naming convention: <last-name>_<first-name>.docx, where <last-name> and <first-name> are the last and first names of the applicant.

Applications must be submitted here by January 31, 2026 at 5 PM. Decisions will be announced on February 28, 2026.
 

Size and number of awards

  • Expected RTT program budget: $55,000
  • Anticipated number of awards pending adequate proposals of merit: 4 - 20
  • Expected range of award per project: $500 - $10,000
  • Period of performance: 1 year
  • Expected start date: July 1, 2026

Rubric

All applications will be evaluated using the following rubric. 

  1. Does the proposal conform to all requirements? Proposals that do not conform to all requirements will be rejected without further consideration.
     
  2. Does the application contain all required sections? Proposals that do not contain all required sections will be rejected without further consideration.
     
  3. Does the proposal affirm that no other funds are available to support this research, and that funding requests to other relevant Brown University sources have been made when available and relevant? Proposals that do not contain this affirmation will be rejected without further consideration.
     
  4. Is the proposal clear to a general academic audience? Rank 1 - 5 with 1 strongest and 5 weakest.
     
  5. Will the proposed research lead to significant advance in the scholarly, research or teaching activities of the applicant? Rank 1 - 5 with 1 strongest and 5 weakest. 

Proposals for which the answer to questions 1 - 3 is “yes” will be ranked using the mean of questions 4 and 5 across all members of the search committee, from which recommendations will be advanced to the IBES director. Funding decisions will be based on ranking and the size of the funding request.

Previous Graduate Research, Training & Travel Award Recipients

Other Funding Opportunities at Brown for Grad Students