Each year, the Mershon Center for International Security Studies holds a competition for Ohio State faculty and students to apply for research grants and scholarship funds.

Research Grants

Applications for Faculty Research and Seed Grants and Graduate Student Research Grants must be for projects related to the study of national security in a global context. We are also interested in projects that emphasize the role of peace-building and development; strengthen the global gateways in China, India and Brazil; relate to campus area studies centers and institutes; or address the university's Discovery Themes of health and wellness, energy and the environment, food production and security, and the humanities and arts.

In recent years the center has funded several dozen faculty and graduate student research projects with grants for travel, seminars, conferences, interviews, experiments, surveys, library costs, and more. To learn more about the types of projects funded, please see project summaries on the Mershon Center website under Research.

Examples of faculty grants

Jennifer Siegel (History) is writing a book on diplomacy during World War I. While scholars have studied the origins of the war, few have considered diplomacy during the war itself. Siegel finds that conflicting agreements between various countries shaped the peace agreement of 1919, setting up the global framework for the interwar period.

Craig Jenkins (Sociology, right), C.K. Shum (Earth Sciences), and Joyce Chen (AEDE) are piloting a flood and drought early warning system in Bangladesh, one of the countries most vulnerable to climate change. The project is designed to help people adapt to and plan for extreme weather events so they can stay in place rather than flee the country.

Christopher Gelpi (Political Science) organized a conference on war, media and public opinion that brought together scholars in history, communications, geography, and political science with practicing journalists to discuss coverage of military force and its impact on the public, most of which has no personal exposure to warfare.

Examples of graduate student grants

Reed Kurtz (Political Science) attended the COP 23 climate conference in Bonn, Germany, where he observed several sessions and plenaries and conducted field research with key figures in the secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as the several organizations in the climate justice movement.

Vladimir Chlouba (Political Science) visited Botswana, Namibia and Zambia to study the role of traditional chiefs in African democracies. He found that virtually all democratic countries in sub-Saharan Africa have given traditional chiefs a role, but that some countries have incorporated them tightly into modern government while in others their role is less defined.

Study Abroad

The Mershon Center has also established International Security Scholarships for Undergraduate Theses and Study Abroad to support undergraduates whose professional career plans lie in the field of international security and who would benefit doing research for an undergraduate thesis or studying in a foreign country. Applications will be evaluated by an interdisciplinary review committee that will make recommendations to the director of the Mershon Center. Scholarship amounts typically range from $2,000 to $3,000.

Examples of undergraduate scholarships

Lucia Colicchio participated in the Canadian Parliament Internship, where she spent five weeks in Ottawa observing Canada's parliament and interning for Minister Ahmed Hussen, minister for immigration, refugees and citizenship. She researched policies and legislation such as Canada's 2017 Budget and Government Bill C-6 on citizenship.

Chase Tiefermann traveled to Dublin, Ireland, and Amman, Jordan, for a comparative study of conflict in Northern Ireland and the Middle East. He found that although both conflicts were connected to religion, one was essentially a civil rights movement for Catholics while the other is rooted in land rights and vying nationalism.

How to Apply

Application forms and instructions for all Mershon Center grants and scholarships can be found in the Grants section of the Mershon Center

website. The deadline for all applications is 5 p.m. on Wednesday, February 28, 2018.