HOTCUS Research Awards

HOTCUS 2026 Doctoral and Early Career Research Awards

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HOTCUS welcomes applications from doctoral students and recent PhD graduates not yet in academic employment, as well as those on short-term (less than three years), fractional, or hourly paid contracts for its 2026 Research Award competition.

HOTCUS Research Awards support research in any area of twentieth-century United States history. Applications may be made for up to £500 for research expenses (including the cost of hiring a research assistant) and/or research travel to take place within 12 months after the date of application. There are no residency restrictions and travel may be to, or within, any country.

To address current patterns of under-representation in the makeup of our scholarly community and the wider discipline of History, HOTCUS especially welcomes applications from scholars with an ethnic minority background. Applicants must be members of HOTCUS at the time of application.

Successful applicants for a HOTCUS Research Award agree to submit a short report within two months of the research activity for publication on the HOTCUS website and to acknowledge the award in future publications.  We also warmly encourage award recipients to present their research findings at a future HOTCUS Annual Conference.

All applications must be submitted to membershipsecretary.hotcus@gmail.com by 1 March, 2026. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of the competition in April 2026. (Please note that applications must not exceed the stated word count in the relevant rubrics and should not include external links.)

The 2026 application form can be downloaded here. 

To assist applicants with their proposals, we present this example of a previously successful Research Award applicant that can be downloaded here.