Funding

Internship Funding

Mary and Greg Downes Summer Internship Program in Public Service

The Mary and Greg Downes Endowment provides funding to Political Science majors to help defray living expenses during a summer internship in public service. It is not intended to be used as wage replacement. For paid internships, the grant will supplement wages to the extent that food, transportation, and housing costs are covered. Rising juniors or seniors who will not be able to intern without this grant are eligible. Students must have received an internship offer prior to applying. Due to Notre Dame’s status as a 501c3 nonprofit, internships with political parties such as PACs, RNC, DNC, or political campaigns are not eligible.

To Apply

Please write a personal statement explaining how the internship is related to public service and your learning goals. Upload it along with your resume and budget worksheet to the application form. Applications for summer 2023 funding may be accepted on a rolling basis. Please meet with Claudia Francis prior to submitting an application

Other Internship Funding

Research Funding

Political Science majors take advantage of the opportunity to explore fundamental questions and contribute to a scholarly conversation. A variety of funding and support is available for undergraduate research.

Expanding Horizons through UROP

The Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) enables students to transcend the conventional boundaries of classroom learning and engage in hands-on research and creative projects. Administered by Notre Dame’s Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, UROP facilitates in-depth, self-directed learning by providing grants to support an array of needs associated with undergraduate projects.

UROP gives the students in the College extraordinary opportunities to pursue scholarship and creative works that reflect their own interests and aspirations. Funding is available for conference presentations, research and materials, senior thesis, and a variety of topic based project grants.

The Flatley Center for Scholarly Undergraduate Development (CUSE)

CUSE can help you develop and find funding for many different kinds of research to help you make the most of your Notre Dame experience and expand your intellectual life at the University.

CUSE also assists students in applications for national programs such as Fulbright, Rhodes, Marshall, and Gates Cambridge Fellowships.

Kellogg Institute for International Studies

The Kellogg Institute for International Studies is committed to the pursuit of scholarly excellence and to value-driven research that helps to advance human welfare around the world. As one of the most critical issues facing humanity, democracy is at the core of the Institute’s research agenda.

In pursuit of gaining a broader understanding of democracy's effects in nation-states around the globe, the Kellogg Institute advances research projects and discussion forums to explore this central theme.

The broad umbrella of democracy studies includes research on:

The founding, institutionalization, and quality of democratic regimes, including the quality of public life;
Democratic governability and accountability and the expansion and consolidation of human rights and the rule of law;
Public policies for social justice, with an emphasis on how government can foster social well-being and on linkages between government, business, and civil society;
The relationship between religion and politics, examining the impact of religious belief on public life and the role of religion in civil society;
Civil society and social movements, including their formation, activity, and inclusion in the political process, with a focus on conceptions of citizenship and political regimes types;
Citizen participation, such as the role of indigenous languages in the issue of participation;
Varieties of democracy, including conceptualization and measurement;
Democracy’s past and legacy.