Small Conference Grant Program

The Society for Personality and Social Psychology launched the inaugural application of the SPSP Small Conference Grants program in 2016 to provide funding for SPSP members who wish to host small conferences relevant to the personality and social psychology field.

Award Info

Description

SPSP seeks to provide small grants to support personality and social psychological research at all levels, including conference support. Conference support is intended to assist SPSP members in their efforts to develop and host successful conferences. Conference support is not to be used for individuals to attend existing conferences or to support preconferences at the SPSP Convention.

Two levels of support are available:

Up to $5,000 - Applicable to smaller meetings or meetings jointly funded by a number of organizations or entities
$5,001 to $10,000 - Applicable to meetings mostly or solely funded through the current SPSP mechanism

Preference will be given to support of developing new Communities or building Communities within SPSP, though support would not be limited to these groups.

** Applicants will be required to submit COVID-19 contingency plans as part of the application process. **

Eligibility

To apply for the small conference, applicants must be full members of SPSP (those with doctorates in psychology) with current membership in good standing at time of application.

EVALUATION

Your application will be evaluated based on its unique scientific merit, and SPSP encourages submitters to consider diversity in attendees and speakers when organizing a conference. Diversity includes gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity and race, disability, career level, and other underrepresented statuses. It is strongly recommended that you include a list of proposed and/or confirmed speakers. SPSP also encourages collaboration with other organizations, including programmatic and financial collaborations.

DISCLAIMER ON USE OF FUNDS

Funds will be made available in one of two ways:

1) Directly payable to another hosting/sponsoring entity OR the recipient’s university. If this method is chosen, a W9 from the payee will be required. Under this arrangement, SPSP is a sponsor and will not be legally or financially responsible for the conference and no contract should be signed under the auspice of SPSP, Inc.

2) Funds hosted at SPSP. If this method is chosen, SPSP will be the host of the conference and will assume contractual responsibility, including financial, legal and tax responsibility. Organizers will maintain control of the program content and will work with SPSP staff on budgets/contracts.

3) No portion of the costs are granted to the awardee's institution to cover indirect costs.

In either payment scenario, if the conference does not occur within 12 months, the funds must be returned to SPSP. Recipients of the grant must provide a post-event final report summarizing the event and its outcomes.

How to Apply

Applications are accepted from full members of SPSP (those with doctorates in psychology). Applications are accepted twice annually:

April 1, 2020 – July 1, 2020 (for conferences held between September 2020 and August 2021)
October 1, 2020 – December 1, 2020 (for conferences held between February 2021 and January 2022)

Apply Here

Basic information:
1. Name
2. University
3. Department
4. Mailing Address
5. Email
6. Phone
7. Title of conference.
8. Amount Requested
9. Anticipated date of proposed conference
10. SPSP members involved (up to 6)
Explanation of the conference and its unique scientific merit (maximum one page)
A one paragraph description of the project’s relevance to SPSP.
Explanation of how the organizers will promote diversity in speakers and attendees (a proposed and/or confirmed speaker list is strongly recommended)
Projected outcome of the conference. The outcome could be documentation in the form of (a) a book or a special issue OR (b) evidence of outreach to, or development of a needed community within SPSP.
Tentative budget for how the funds will be used - including all expected revenue (other sponsors, registration, etc) AND expenses
Promise to recognize SPSP in the conference program and in any resulting publication. The relevant statements are included below.*
Responsible persons (up to 3). Please include their CVs and their membership history of SPSP

Recognition statements.

Conference program: “This conference was funded partially through the Society of Personality and Social Psychology conference support program.”

Publication: “This project was completed partially through support from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology conference support program.”

Past Recipients

Spring 2020

Rhonda Balzarini: "How Technology is Changing Our Social Relationships: Current Evidence and Future Research Directions" ($7,000)
Adam Pearson: "Symposium on Climate Change" ($5,000)
Christopher Hopwood: "Using advanced technology to study personality in non-WEIRD populations" ($8,000)

Spring 2019

Samantha Moore-Berg: "Preempting Racism" ($5,000)
Amie Gordon: "Bringing Sleep-Wake Processes into Personality and Social Psychological Research" ($10,000)

Fall 2018

Toni Schmader: "Excellence and Gender Equality in Science and Technology" ($5,000)
Kody Manke: "Self-Affirmation: Mechanisms and Theory" ($5,000)

Spring 2018

John Rauthman: "Summer School of Personality Psychology" ($500)
Chadly Stern: "Illinois Summit on Diversity in Psychological Science" ($1,000)
Hanne Watkins: "The Psychology of Sustainable Consumption: Perception, Purchasing, Policy, and Promotion" ($1,500)
Jessica Salvatore: "Mapping Space/Place and Psychology" ($3,500)