The ISPP Governing Council is pleased to continue ISPP’s Small Grants Initiative that uses a portion of the income from ISPP investment funds to support research and network projects that further the goals of ISPP: (1) to increase the diversity of ISPP membership and internationalize the Society; (2) to strengthen our organization; and (3) to promote excellence in political psychology.
We now invite ISPP members to submit small grant proposals for 2026. We will accept proposals related to political psychology from any current ISPP member in one of two categories: (1) small research grants to support focused research projects, or (2) small research network/workshop/mini-conference grants to help bring together a group of researchers. Specific award amounts may vary, but we have $50,000 USD to distribute, and the maximum amount proposers may request is $5,000 USD. We will make exceptions to this award limit in only the most extraordinary circumstances.
We will evaluate both types of proposals on the same four criteria: (1) the ability to expand and diversify the reach of ISPP into underrepresented areas of the world, for example by including researchers from those areas, examining understudied populations from those areas, or featuring capacity-building; (2) promoting excellence in political psychology, including, but not limited to, integrative theoretical approaches, new methodologies, innovative topics, or important areas of research in political psychology that have been understudied; (3) the design and development of the proposal, including, but not limited to, methodological rigour, the feasibility of completing the project within a year and the description of concrete output/deliverables, and (4) the scientific and societal significance of the project, including, but not limited to, its relevance to practice and policy, or its engagement with specific communities.
Different from last year’s procedure, the committee will evaluate whether proposals sufficiently fulfill these criteria — proposals that sufficiently meet all four criteria proceed to the next stage, where they form a pool of candidates from which we will randomly draw the winners (i.e., like a lottery). For transparency purposes, this will be recorded so that there is no bias involved. The idea behind this lottery procedure is that it (a) acknowledges that the committee is able to evaluate whether a proposal sufficiently satisfies the criteria we value without claiming to know which proposal is better than the other, and that it (b) has lower risks of bias and, hence, is more fair and inclusive. We see this procedure as a pilot to be evaluated and therefore will be very much interested in hearing the experiences of participants involved in the procedure (once it has been completed).
To submit a proposal, members should go to https://ispp.org/funding/small-grants/ where they can download the template form for the proposal (or alternatively, e-mail the committee chair Martijn van Zomeren at m.van.zomeren@rug.nl). Proposals (max. 1500 words) must be submitted before December 1, 2025, for consideration to info@ispp.org. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, we anticipate completing the review process and drawing the winners by January 15, 2026. We will notify applicants about the outcome as soon as possible thereafter.
Applicants must be current members of ISPP. We will encourage any other participants in the grant-funded project to join the Society if they have not already done so. We will also ask all grant recipients to provide a report on the project to ISPP.
Please direct any questions you may have about this Call for Proposals to the committee chair, Martijn van Zomeren [m.van.zomeren@rug.nl]. —The ISPP Initiatives Committee
