The Quandt Fund for International Research

The Quandt International Research Fund has been established by the Department of Politics of the University of Virginia in honor of William Quandt, a distinguished faculty member and well-known expert on Middle Eastern politics. The Fund assists students and faculty in the Department to pursue studies and research abroad by making travel grants to defray the cost of international travel. The awards are administered annually by a faculty committee.

Grants of up to $4,000 are made to Politics students, undergraduate and graduate, planning international study in any region or country, including structured programs and individual research. Grants can also be made to Politics faculty for research abroad. Applicants should inform the committee of other funding applications, and grantees should inform the committee of overlapping awards.

  • Grants can be used from May to December of the year of award
  • Grantees are expected to submit a brief report on their field experience within two months of their return

Student applicants should submit a statement of purpose, an estimated budget including other planned or pending applications, and an unofficial transcript. One faculty letter of recommendation is required, not necessarily from a Politics faculty member. Faculty applicants should describe their research project.

William Quandt

Born in Los Angeles, California, Bill Quandt received his BA from Stanford University and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Professor Quandt’s outstanding achievements as a scholar, diplomat, and teacher are too numerous to detail here. More directly relevant and perhaps less well known are the life-changing experiences of his first trips abroad. As a high school student he was part of the first group of American youth sent to Japan. He mastered the Japanese script and made lifelong friends there. More basically, he learned to listen and to observe. Convinced that his future was in foreign affairs, his next field trip was to France in 1960-61, when extrication from Algeria was the hottest topic. Interested, he researched Algeria, but found that to be serious he would have to learn Arabic and to go there. In 1966-7 he was finally able to go to North Africa and to conduct fifty interviews with people involved in the Algerian revolution. The rest is history — the emergence of a great Middle East expert.

Without the cumulative effects of Japan, France, and Algeria, and without their humbling yet exciting lessons in the reality of the world beyond books and numbers, history would have been different.

Quandt Fund Application

Eligibility

Grants of up to $4000 are made to:

  • Politics students, undergraduate and graduate, for international study in any region or country, including structured programs and individual research;
  • Politics faculty, for research abroad.

Grants can be used from May to December of the year of award, and recipients are expected to submit a brief report on their field experience within two months of their return.

Instructions

Applicants should inform the committee of other funding applications, and recipients should inform the committee of overlapping awards.

Student applicants

Submit a statement of purpose, an estimated budget including other planned or pending applications, and an unofficial transcript. One faculty letter of recommendation is required, not necessarily from a Politics faculty member.

Faculty applicants

Submit a statement describing the research project.

 

Past Quandt Awards

 

Quandt Award Contact Information

The Quandt Fund for International Research
Department of Politics
University of Virginia
P.O. Box 400787
Charlottesville, VA 22903
Sharon Marsh

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