Purpose, Eligibility, and Grant Details & Procedures
Purpose:
The purpose of these grants is to recruit strong incoming internationally- or area-studies oriented graduate students in all fields.
Eligibility:
Grants are offered to prospective graduate students as an inducement to study at
Wisconsin. Any UW-Madison academic program that admits graduate students (included on the
Graduate School’s website may nominate a prospective
student that it is recruiting. Application is at the program, not plan, level; any questions regarding
eligibility should be directed to awards@iris.wisc.edu.
Grant Details:
These are grants of $5,000 to be used in the first three years of the recipient’s career at
the UW-Madison and are meant to support a substantive international research or training program.
Funds will be released on request to departments to manage on behalf of recipients in the month prior
to the planned use of the funds. Awardees will be asked to submit a brief report on the work
supported by the funds on completion of their funded research/program.
Procedures:
• The Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS) notifies units of the availability of the grants
and invites them to nominate prospective students for consideration.
• For 2023, programs may nominate ONE prospective student for these awards.
• A faculty-led review committee will consider material submitted by the nominating program and report
back whether its nominee has been approved. The program will then inform the prospective student of
the grant offer. There is no contact between IRIS and any nominee during the nominating process.
• The deadline for receipt of nominations from participating programs for 2023 is 1:00pm on Monday,
February 13, 2023. IRIS will aim to inform programs of fellowship offer decisions by the end of February.
• This year, programs will submit nominations via a Google form
The form asks for the following information:
o The name of the nominee.
o A brief case for the nominee (1,200 character maximum), including the nominee’s likely need for
fieldwork, summer language training, or international travel or training of a related kind during
their first three years at UW-Madison.
o Baseline information on the nominee: prior college or university education (institutions and
degrees); undergraduate and (if applicable) graduate GPA; GRE and other relevant test scores.
o The student’s letter of application to the program, or statement of purpose.
o No other information (e.g. writing samples or publications) may be submitted. If there are
special points to make about the nominee’s credentials, the program may do so in its case for
the nominee.
Questions: UW-Madison programs can contact the Mark Lilleleht in the IRIS Awards Office at
awards@iris.wisc.edu or 608.265.6070 with any questions regarding the grants.