AISLS dissertation planning grants are designed to enable graduate students intending to do doctoral research in Sri Lanka to make a pre-dissertation visit to Sri Lanka to investigate the feasibility of their topic, to sharpen their research design, or to make other practical arrangements for future research. Applicants must be enrolled at an American university, or they may be US citizens enrolled at a foreign university. Applicants who are enrolled at a US university need not be American citizens. Projects in all fields in the social sciences and humanities are eligible. Proposals will be judged on their quality and on the potential of the dissertation research to strengthen scholarship on Sri Lanka. The project narrative should cover the following topics: a summary of the proposed dissertation project, or, if the purpose of the planning grant is to define a dissertation project, a summary of the more general questions the applicant hopes to address in his or her dissertation; a description of what the applicant intends to do during the grant period; and the applicant's competence to carry out his or her proposed project, including language training. Application materials should be sent in a single Word or PDF file, collated in the order given in the website. Please visit the award's website for more information.