The American Society of Plant Taxonomists is pleased to announce the Society’s annual competition for research grants for graduate student investigators. Support is available for both masters and doctoral students to conduct fieldwork, herbarium studies, and/or laboratory research in any area of plant systematics. Unnamed grants will not exceed $1200, and named grants will not exceed $1500 (the Rogers McVaugh, William R. Anderson, Shirley and Alan Graham, and W. Hardy Eshbaugh Grants). If your proposal is selected for a named grant, you may be awarded up to $1500, so be sure your budget justifies an amount that high. Proposals will be funded on the basis of merit, regardless of the research area within systematics.

Proposals will be reviewed by the Society’s Awards and Honors Committee and must include the following:

Curriculum vitae
Proposal (the text, including figures and tables but excluding literature cited, should not exceed two single-spaced pages) that describes the research to be conducted, emphasizing the role the grant funds will play
Itemized budget

Eligibility: Applicants must be members of ASPT at the time of the application deadline. Details regarding ASPT membership can be found at the ASPT homepage (https://members.aspt.net).

Proposal submission: Proposal materials (items 1-3 above) must be submitted electronically as a single PDF file. Please use the following formats for the filename: LastName_FirstInitial_proposalASPT.pdf.

All application materials should be submitted to Dr. David Tank via e-mail: dtank@uidaho.edu, and must have Student_name : ASPT Research Grants as the subject line.

Submission deadline for all materials is Thursday, February 28, 2019.

Proposals will be evaluated within three major areas:

1. Scientific Merit (60%). Main evaluation criteria:

1.1. Contribution to novel methods for research in systematics and taxonomy

1.2. Contribution to generation of novel systematic data

1.3. Quality and significance of questions being addressed

1.4. Adequacy of methods for testing hypotheses (data collection/analysis)

2. ASPT Community Building (20%). Main evaluation criteria:

2.1. Applicant’s potential for professional success

2.2. Perceived need; extent to which the project will benefit from ASPT funding

3. Broader Impact (20%). Main evaluation criteria:

3.1. The research will yield durable benefits (e.g., databases, websites)

3.2. The proposed research involves outreach/mentoring and broad dissemination

Reports and research topics from the 2017 grantees can be found here.