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The Renewal of the Ford Grant

The Ford Foundation has renewed its grant to the Forum on Contemporary Theory for a period of three years beginning June 1, 2007.

The specific activities to be undertaken under this grant are as follows:

• Academic events including: (a) an annual international conference, a four-day event typically held in a non-metropolitan campus (b) an annual national workshop held in Vadodara for a period of four-six days (c) an annual Theory/Praxis course for students, and (d) occasional lectures by visiting scholars throughout the course of the year

• A Fellow program which will bring two senior scholars and six junior scholars each year from disadvantaged communities to Vadodara to interact with the faculty and students of the Forum as well as M.S. University

• A "South Asia Scholars-in-Residence" program which will bring four distinguished scholars each year from the neighboring countries of the South Asia region

• A Publications program which will include the bi-annual Journal of Contemporary Thought, a bi-annual Newsletter, and the proceedings of the annual conference

The new activities to be supported under this grant are as follows:

• Appointing an Academic Fellow to help the Director in planning and executing the Center's programs, editing its publications, mentoring research fellows and fundraising.  The Forum plans to hire a social scientist for this position to redress one of the challenges it has faced in expanding its outreach to social sciences in a planned manner

• Extending the Resources of the Centre for Contemporary Theory by expanding office space, increasing staff salaries, and purchasing new library materials to update the current collection and add publications in Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi

• Awarding 12 Library Fellowships of one month each to enable researchers to use the library collection

• Promoting Translation Practices by holding workshops, seminars, and occasional lectures, and awarding two fellowships a year to promote translation of theoretical materials in regional languages such as Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi

Given below are the anticipated outcomes of this grant:

• Expansion of the Forum's outreach in the social sciences

• Development of financial plans and strategies for fundraising

• Promotion of the extensive use of the Center's library collection

• Provision of research opportunities and mentorship for students from disadvantaged communities in Gujarat (and neighboring states)

• Inclusion of regional language researchers in the activities of the Forum

• Continued development of a country-wide and region-wide network of humanists and social scientists engaging with interdisciplinary theory.

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