OSA

Archive 2011/2012

Acadedmic Year 2011/2012

For a better and deeper understanding of the interdependent recent history of (the center of) Europe, the International Visegrad Fund offers 15 research fellowship grants annually in three categories in the Open Society Archives at Central European University, Budapest on a competitive basis to support scholars artists and journalists who wish to conduct research in the holdings of OSA, and whose current projects are relevant to the holdings and the given research priorities of the Fund and OSA. The grants of 2.000 euro each are designed to provide access to the archives for scholars, artists, and journalists, and to cover travel to and from Budapest, a modest subsistence, and accommodation for a research period of eight weeks. Stipends for shorter periods are pro-rated.

Applicants, preferably but not exclusively, from a V4 country, may be researchers, students after their second degree carrying out research, or artists, journalists, academics, or others, who have already started their project that is relevant for the holdings at OSA.

The successful candidates of each category will work at the OSA during their term of research and at the end of the research period they will present their individual research findings to the community of the Central European University, within the framework of the Visegrad Fund Fellow Lecture Series. OSA will publish the final research report, either in text or in audio-visual format, on the webpage of OSA/Visegrad Fund.

Category No. 1

Open Call - We call for researchers who are willing to put together a research team (even including artists) and a project. The successful candidate for this call for proposals will be expected to undertake the following tasks: to build a research team; to plan the research project; and to oversee its execution. The research project will be focused on an area that is closely linked with one or more of the OSA Archives’ main collections.

Support will be offered to one research team per year. The international team of a minimum of five members (Team Leader included) will receive the equivalent of five full research grants, irrespective of the total number of researchers involved. Preferably, two thirds of the researchers come from a Visegrad country and the composition of the team has a wide geographical coverage.

The aim of the project is for the research group to produce material for a book based on the holdings of OSA and get it ready for publication. The final date to submit the proposals is September 30.

In AY 2011/12 there will be no more open calls in Category No. 1.

Assessment

The Selection Committee will evaluate the proposals in a single round on October 1, when the research team worthy of the support will be selected. If no proposal is found to be worthy of support, the Selection Committee will set a new deadline; however, it will reserve the right to refuse to issue the grant in the given category for the given year, if no such proposal is found in the second round.

In its assessment, the Selection Committee will take into consideration the following: the closeness of the connection between the chosen topic of the proposal and the collection of the Archive, the professional qualification of the team leader, the novelty of the research project regarding both form and content, and the geographical composition of the research group.

Application procedure

Please submit the following to OSA:

1. Application letter in English (should specify expected period of stay and preferred dates for all members of the group).
2. Research description/plan in English(about 1.200 words; should indicate relationship between the current research topic, the chosen collection in the OSA holdings and the research of the individual group members, the intended use of text based or audio-visual research results, etc.)
3. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.) of all researchers participating in the project
4. Names of two referees with contact address (only for the Team Leader).

The Application letter, C.V., and Research description/plan and Referees’ contact information can be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The total duration of the research project cannot exceed forty weeks, however one researcher cannot stay longer than eight weeks. In their respective proposals, candidates are expected to include the list of researcher sin their team, complete with their professional CV and the duration of their planned research period.

Category No. 2

Thematic Group – We call for proposals from individual researchers who agree to study the same topic and are willing to coordinate their efforts in such a way that their respective accomplishment of the research aim through different approaches will result in the joint publication preferably of a single volume.

There will be one chosen topic for any given academic year. For the year 2011-2012 this topic will be “Is There Anything Usable One Can Learn from Communism? (from science under communism, from public policy under communism, from resistance against communism, from transition after communism; is there anything that could be salvaged from beneath the ruins of communism; are there important forgotten scholarly or artistic works produced under communism worthy of rediscovering; are there scholars from the time of communism who should be rediscovered and reread; what are those achievements of creative arts, social sciences and humanities under communism that survived the Fall? etc)

In this category the Selection Committee will grant support to a maximum of five proposals in any given year. Should the autumn round of proposals in the 1st category fail to produce any winning entries, the number of grants to be offered can be raised to ten in the second category.

Assessment

The Selection Committee will evaluate proposals four times a year, on the basis of the professional quality and novelty of the research proposal, and its relevance to the chosen topic. The relationship of any proposed research plan to other proposals received concurrently will also be taken into consideration: whether they represent a specific approach, substantially different from the rest.

Application procedure

Please submit the following to OSA:

1. Application letter in English (should specify expected period of stay and preferred dates).
2. Research description/plan in English(about 800 words; should indicate relationship between the current research topic, the chosen collection in the OSA holdings and the research, the intended use of text based or audio-visual research results, etc.) Artists are expected to submit a portfolio, too.
3. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)
4. Names of two referees with contact address (only for the Lead Researcher).

The Application letter, C.V., and Research description/plan and Referees’ contact information can be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Category No. 3

In this category 5 proposals will be supported. Fellows are free to work on the project of their choice, however, in the academic year of 2011-2012, applicants with the following topic might enjoy advantage over other applicants:

• The History of Propaganda, Objectivity and Truth under the Cold War and Right After

The call is closed for AY 2011/12.

Assessment

The Selection Committee will evaluate proposals four times a year, on the basis of the professional quality and novelty of the research proposal, and its relevance to the chosen topic.

Application procedure

Please submit the following to OSA:

1. Application letter in English (should specify expected period of stay and preferred dates).
2. Research description/plan in English (about 800 words; should indicate relationship between the current research topic, the chosen collection in the OSA holdings and your research, the intended use of text based or audio-visual research results, etc.) Artists are expected to submit a portfolio, too.
3. Curriculum Vitae (C.V.)
4. Names of two referees with contact address.

The Application letter, C.V., and Research description/plan and Referees’ contact information can be sent by email to Katalin Gadoros at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .