Emerging Scholar Support
Faculty grantee Carlos Martinez with his workshop attendees.
The Institute supports early career faculty who are poised to make important research and leadership contributions. These faculty members bring fresh ideas and perspectives that shift understanding across society in productive ways. A crucial component of building their impact and influence is facilitating intellectual exchange. Mentorship and guidance from leading scholars helps early-career faculty refine their research, and the connections forged through this type of collaboration ensure wide reach of the resulting work.
To advance these goals, the Institute offers Emerging Scholar Support grant programs designed to help rising faculty complete significant scholarly works that establish them as internationally recognized leaders in their fields. Eligible faculty from UC Santa Cruz’s Social Sciences Division can apply for grants of up to $6,000 to convene one-day workshops with leading scholars to advance research production and networking needs.
Award types
Book Publishing Accelerator Grant
For emerging scholars who publish their research in the form of books, a workshop funded by a Book Publishing Accelerator Grant is an opportunity to receive critical feedback on a monograph in progress and to build professional networks with senior scholars. All invited workshop participants are expected to read the full monograph in advance and come prepared to engage in thoughtful and constructive critique of the manuscript.
Article Publication and Research-Building Grant
For emerging scholars who disseminate their research through academic journals, career advancement often depends on demonstrating a productive record of publications that progress in a transformative arc. Workshops funded by this grant type convene an advisory group to review a set of published and in-progress articles by an emerging scholar and provide feedback on how to develop a coherent and diverse research agenda and achieve high-impact publications.
Awardees making a difference
Revealing the impacts of immigration policy
Assistant Professor of Latin American & Latino Studies Carlos Martinez is a medical anthropologist who studies the consequences of policing, incarceration, and immigration policy. He used a Book Publishing Accelerator Grant to support his work on an in-progress manuscript about how U.S. policies of deportation and exclusion have turned border communities in Tijuana, Mexico into sites of perpetual captivity for vulnerable people. Alongside his grant workshop, he also hosted a public panel discussion on how authoritarianism and xenophobia are shaping immigration and how immigrant solidarity practices are evolving in response.
Envisioning the future of agricultural technology
Throughout agriculture’s history, technological “advances” have too often ended up harming ecosystems and rural communities, while concentrating power among corporations. But Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Maywa Montenegro argues that changing the social conditions within which technology develops could change the outcomes. She used an Article Publication and Research-Building Grant to map out a community-engaged research agenda for studying routes to more equitable agricultural technology. She has since published related papers on genetically modified organisms and the role of evidence in tech development.
A clean energy transition that supports workers
Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies J. Mijin Cha used a Book Publishing Accelerator Grant to support development of her latest book, A Just Transition for All. The book lays out a governance framework for building a carbon-free economy in a way that protects workers and communities in the process. Since its publication, it has been reviewed by the Malcom Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard University and Cha has been invited to speak at the Climate & Community Institute, University of New Mexico, University of Minnesota, Vermont Law & Graduate School and been interviewed by journalists at CBS News, Mother Jones, and Prism.
About the program
Funding cycle
The Institute for Social Transformation provides Emerging Scholar Support awards on an annual basis according to the following yearly schedule.
| Application period | Awards announced | Funding available | Project Period |
| December-March | mid-April | May-June | July – June |
How it works
Budget and logistics
Grantees receive a budget of about $6,000 to host three or four senior scholars on campus (or remotely, if necessary) for a full-day discussion. Workshop budgets cover travel, lodging, and meals/expenses for invited senior scholars, as well as cost for event meeting space and catering. Institute staff work closely with awardees to administer their agenda, coordinate travel and accommodations with leading scholars, and organize workshop logistics.
Invited senior scholars
At least one of the invited senior scholars must be a UC Santa Cruz faculty member from the awardee’s department or field, who will serve as moderator of the workshop and support the awardee in selecting the other invited scholars. Three invited scholars can be whomever the awardee deems best positioned to comment on their work, especially those who could serve as external letter writers during the awardee’s tenure or promotion review process.
All senior scholars hosted through this program are invited to contribute to other campus, department, or Institute’s priority programming. For example, in the past, invited senior scholars have given a talk on campus during their visit, hosted office hours with Ph.D. students, or discussed their work in relevant Ph.D. seminars. These activities are planned in coordination between the invited scholars, the awardee and workshop moderator, relevant departments, and Institute staff.
Other attendees
In addition to invited senior scholars, one or two faculty members in a relevant field of study can be invited to attend the workshop. The Faculty Director of the Institute for Social Transformation will also be invited to attend.
Eligibility
Please consider applying for an Emerging Scholar Support Award if you meet the following requirements:
- Applicants must be assistant professors or associate professors from a Social Sciences Division department or program at UC Santa Cruz.
- Priority will be given to assistant professors working on a body of work that, when completed, is intended to be part of their tenure package.
- Associate professors working on manuscripts intended to be part of their promotion package to full professor are also encouraged to apply, if they can clearly demonstrate how the funds would be instrumental in catapulting their national or international reputation.
- Applicants may only apply to one Emerging Scholar or Catalyze opportunity per year.
Selection criteria
Proposals will be reviewed by members of the Institute’s Executive Board according to the following general criteria:
- Relevance to the goals of the Institute for Social Transformation
- Quality and fit of proposed invited senior scholars
- Strength and clarity of the proposal
- Capacity for the proposed work to produce public benefits
See the application information in the section below for full details and additional program-specific selection criteria for the Book Publishing Accelerator Grant and the Article Publication and Research-Building Grant.
Apply for Emerging Scholar Support funding
Emerging Scholar Applications are due March 30, 2026. We plan to fund 1-2 workshops from July 1, 2026, through June 30, 2027.
If you’d like more information about our application process, please contact Ned LeBlond.
Book Publishing Accelerator Grant
Applicants for the Book Publishing Accelerator Grant must have a complete draft monograph in-hand by the proposed time of the workshop. Grant applications should describe this manuscript and share information about potential workshop participants, as well as the applicant and their goals.
Submission requirements
- Manuscript information: include a title, description, significance, status, and publication timeline. How will this workshop help the trajectory of your career? (2,500 character limit)
- Relevance to the Institute: How does this work fit at the intersections of environmental sustainability, environmental justice, and democratic societies? How will the project work towards the Institute’s goals of supporting boundary-crossing research, community-centered research, and/or stakeholder outreach for public benefit? (1,500 character limit)
- Applicants must include an email (saved as a PDF) indicating support from a UC Santa Cruz senior scholar in their department/field who is willing to moderate the workshop.
- Abbreviated CV of applicant (five pages maximum) (PDF)
- CV of 3-5 senior scholars (3 primary and up to 2 alternates) to be invited or link to the scholars’ websites
- Are you in contact with a publisher? If so, what publisher and who is your contact?
- How will invited scholars improve your published work? (3,000 characters)
- Describe the types of publicly beneficial outcomes that could follow publication (1,000 characters)
Article Publication and Research-Building Grant
Applicants for the Article Publication and Research-Building Grant must have near-complete drafts of several articles in preparation for publication in hand by the proposed time of the workshop. Grant applications should describe the proposed articles and share information about potential workshop participants, as well as the applicant and their goals.
Submission requirements
- Article information: include a workshop title, description of journal articles in preparation, status of articles, overall journal series significance, and your timelines for publication. How will this workshop help the trajectory of your career? (2,500 character limit)
- Relevance to the Institute: How does this work fit at the intersections of environmental sustainability, environmental justice, and democratic societies? How will the project work towards the Institute’s goals of supporting boundary-crossing research, community-centered research, and/or stakeholder outreach for public benefit? (1,500 character limit)
- Applicants must include an email (saved as a PDF) indicating support from a UC Santa Cruz senior scholar in their department/field who is willing to moderate the workshop
- Abbreviated CV of applicant (five pages maximum) (PDF)
- CV of 3-5 senior scholars (3 primary and up to 2 alternates) to be invited or link to the scholars’ websites
- How will invited scholars improve your published work? (3,000 characters)
- Describe the types of publicly beneficial outcomes that could follow publication (1,000 characters)