About the CPE Graduate Student Grants

Center Graduate Student Grants are for one year, and are intended to support research and the generation of new knowledge and new networks. We are open to research approaches that use qualitative and/or quantitative approaches, including those that incorporate historical, ethnographic, interview-based, or policy or legal analysis. 

Grant funds, for example, may be utilized to:

• Purchase data or computing resources;
• Hire research assistants;
• Conduct new research; 
• Travel to archives and/or external academic convenings; and
• Organize workshops and conferences

Awards are anticipated to range from $5,000 to $15,000. In extraordinary circumstances with departmental approval, grants may be provided to fund a semester long buyout of teaching responsibilities. Additionally, to encourage collaboration and cross-disciplinary work, grants over $15,000 may be awarded to collaborative research projects. 

Grant applications must be submitted by Monday, October 13, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. ET. Awards will be made in December 2025, and the award period will run from January 1, 2026 to December 31, 2026.

Topics

The Center invites applications from eligible Columbia graduate students on topics of relevance to the Center’s broad priorities. This includes the foci of the Center’s Idea Labs – Firms and Industrial Policy, Work and Labor, Money and Finance, Climate, and International Political Economy – as well as the relationship between Political Economy and Democracy.

• Firms and Industrial Policy seeks to strengthen the knowledge base for smart industrial policy through explorations of firm behavior, drivers of innovation and technology adoption, conceptual issues in the design of industrial policies, and practical issues faced in implementation.
• Work and Labor focuses on the empirical study of labor and labor markets, including collective worker action and the future of domestic and international labor movements. 
• Money and Finance explores the relation of money and finance both in theoretical terms and in institutional configurations, including the design of financial intermediaries and their relation to central banks and financial market regulators.
• Political Economy of Climate focuses on fostering synergies around climate fairness and environmental justice, international collaboration or lack thereof, interests shaping the effectiveness of energy transition, and political constraints on environmental (especially climate) policies.
• International Political Economy analyzes the intersection of international economics and international politics, including the politics of international money, finance, trade, and migration, and the interaction of international economics and geopolitics.
• Political Economy and Democracy examines challenges emanating from the relationship between economic structures and democratic politics, such as economic and political inequalities and polarization and challenges to democratic institutions and processes.

In evaluating proposals, Center faculty reviewers will prioritize collaborative and multidisciplinary projects, those with the potential to break new ground in understanding the intersections of economics and political and social processes in the US and abroad, and those advancing theoretical, conceptual, and methodological innovation. 

Eligibility

PhD and JSD students at Columbia University from all disciplines are encouraged to propose projects. Proposals submitted by applicants from more than one department and/or school are encouraged.