Support for “hard” costs of practicum and dissertation research is funded by the Graduate School and College of Education at Michigan State University with the goals of encouraging pilot studies and/or more ambitious, independent dissertations.
Eligibility:
- Students in the mid-to-late stages of their doctoral studies are eligible.
- Students may receive multiple hard cost awards through different rounds of grant funding.
- Students who receive hard cost funding are still eligible for a Dissertation Completion Fellowship to buy out their time when they are in the final stages of their program.
Amount of Funding:
- The minimum award is $500; the maximum award is $4000 per student per round of grant funding.
What can be funded:
- Research expenses can include paying for others’ labor costs (e.g., data entry, transcription) but cannot be used to buy the recipient’s time.
- Other allowable expenses include:
- Testing/validating original survey instruments
- Acquiring a commercially available instrument that will be given to a new population
- Providing direct incentives to interview or survey participants (i.e., gift card)
- Offering refreshments or tokens of appreciation to focus groups (i.e., MSU t-shirts)
- Funding postage/mailing/copying costs for hard copy surveys or to purchase an online survey hosting account
- Travel to data collection sites
- Data entry/transcription labor costs
Application Requirements:
- Departments determine the application materials.
- The College requires that each student provide the department with a detailed budget for anticipated expenses.
- Departments may also, for example, ask a student to (a) document why they count as a mid-to-late-stage PhD student, (b) write a one-paragraph description of the project's needs and how these funds will result in more ambitious research, and (c) document other funding sources that are currently being applied towards this research.
Submission, selection, and key dates:
- Students submit applications to their department by a deadline announced by the department.
- Department selects recipients and notifies all applicants.
- Department notifies College by Monday, November 17, 2025 of awards made to students and of any remaining funding from the department allocation, which the College will use to support emerging graduate student funding needs.
- Funding will be initiated in December, but funds may not be received until January.
Selection Criteria:
- Please inquire with your department for more information.
- The Office of the Associate Dean for Academic and Student Affairs allocates funding to departments roughly proportionally to the number of full-time doctoral students in each department.
Additional Information:
- Awardees are encouraged to use any hard cost funding received from the College as matching funds when applying for Research Enhancement Awards from the Graduate School. Graduate School awards range from $500-$1000 and each student may only receive one Research Enhancement Award while in a particular program.
- Departments may require applicants to include a Research Enhancement Award proposal as part of their submission to the department or explain why they are not doing so. Such a requirement would allow a department to stretch available funding further and benefit even more students.