This is a new thematically focused grant in the range of $30-50,000, which may be expended over a multi-year period. For the 2010-11 grant competition, the PRRP invites Faculty Initiative Grant applications on the topic “Responses to Crisis in the Pacific Rim.” The historical formation of the Pacific Rim region, and its rapid economic growth and dramatic rise over the past century, have not been peaceful. Political, social, and economic crises have occurred with some regularity in the region. More battle-related deaths have occurred in East Asia than in any other region since World War II. An arc of territory from southern Mexico through Bolivia has rarely known social stability in the past thirty years. Throughout the region, inter-state tensions are exacerbated by domestic social divisions and formidable social, health, and environmental problems. Today, the region is facing a new challenge in the global financial crisis emanating, ironically, from the developed core of the world financial system in the U.S. The Initiative Grants will fund research that explores the impact of crisis on the Pacific region, historically and in the contemporary moment. Proposals may address the social, economic, and political roots of past or present crises, their cultural ramifications, and their multiple effects. Crisis, which can have a long historical dimension, may take the form of a catalytic event that sets in motion or accelerates a sequence of political and economic events. Crisis causes a sudden change in external conditions that requires individuals, businesses and governments to
quickly change behaviors and strategies. Social crisis may cause a breakdown of the controls that limit movement of population, regulate public health, and protect the environment and economy. States may intensify their technologies of control in order to clean up after a crisis, or avert the perceived danger of a crisis. Crisis may give rise to new cultural practices and modes of expression in literature, the arts, religion, and popular politics.
All Initiative Grant proposals must involve collaboration of scholars from more than one Pacific Rim nation or territory, and may include support of graduate students. Interdisciplinary collaborations and multi-campus participation will enhance the prospects for funding.

Advanced Graduate Research Fellowships support graduate students for a year of dissertation research or its equivalent.

Students may apply for a maximum of $20,000 in funding for a year of research.