Research Travel Grants

Call for Applications

The UC Davis Library is accepting applications for travel grants in the amount of $2,500 to support use of our distinctive collections in Archives and Special Collections and/or our Food and Wine collections. The purpose of the grant is to support travel costs for scholars interested in using our collections. Applications are due October 30, 2025.

Award Overview

Grant monies are to be used for costs such as, but not limited to, travel, accommodations and incidentals associated with research and publication.

The travel must be completed during 2026; we are unable to defer grants. Grantees would be expected to finalize the dates of their residency well in advance to allow the UC Davis Library to pull materials from storage as necessary. 

In addition to the grant itself, the library will provide recipients with modest office space within the library for the duration of their stay. While on campus, the recipient will enjoy full access to our electronic resources; the library is unable to provide off-campus access to non-affiliates. Recipients are welcome to use materials in the circulating collection in the library or, depending on individual circumstances, may be eligible to apply for a library card. Recipients are not eligible for access to interlibrary loan services.

The library is unable to help recipients with making travel arrangements, identifying housing in Davis, arranging parking on campus, or with access to employee breakrooms.

Eligibility

This application is open to academics working at institutions other than UC Davis and independent scholars. Applications from scholars utilizing traditional methods of archival and bibliographic research are encouraged as are applications from individuals who wish to pursue creative, interdisciplinary, and non-traditional approaches to conducting research in the collections. Graduate students applying for a travel grant should be at an advanced stage in their research or prospectus development and have a fully conceptualized project related to their degree program.

There are no citizenship requirements for these grants. For grantees outside of the United States, UC Davis can provide a support letter but no additional assistance with or sponsorship of a visa attendant with this award.

Review Process

Applications will be reviewed by a panel which may include representatives from the UC Davis Library and other campus stakeholders. The grantees will be selected based on the strength and clarity of the project proposal. For this application cycle, we anticipate that two grants will be awarded to proposals in the areas of food and wine and two grants will be awarded to proposals in any topic area in our distinctive collections. 

Award Process

Funding will be awarded at the beginning of the residency whenever possible; payment of international recipients often takes several weeks. All grantees are responsible for paying taxes related to the receipt of their award. Student grantees are also responsible for reporting their award to their home institution and for confirming any implications on their financial aid status.

Additional Requirements

At the conclusion of the travel grant, each awardee will complete a 500-word statement detailing the resources used during the grant and summarizing their progress and intended outcome(s). The library requests permission to use this statement to promote further use of the collection(s), future application cycles, and/or to encourage use and support of the library’s collections.

Application Guidelines

Applications are due on October 30, 2025 and consist of the following materials:

1. Proposal (up to 1000 words) that includes:
   1. Project title
   2. Details of the collection(s) to be used and/or evaluated, highlighting any collections that are not yet processed
   3. Significance of the proposed collections research to your project
   4. Value of your project to your field
   5. Feasibility of completing the scope of research proposed within the scope of the travel grant
   6. How the candidate learned about the award
2. A curriculum vitae (up to 3 pages)
3. Proposed travel dates

Submission Instructions

1. Submit all application materials as a single PDF. 
2. Include in the subject line: Travel Grant Application – [applicant name]. 
3. Please submit application materials via email to Rice Majors, Associate University Librarian for Scholarly Resources, ramajors@ucdavis.edu.

Award recipients will be notified by December 1, 2025.

About Our Distinctive Collections

The UC Davis Library food and wine collection, which holds more than 30,000 wine books and special collections of rare manuscripts on wine and food dating back to the 13th century, includes:

In addition to the food and wine collection, Archives and Special Collections has several areas of strength including:

• University Archives (campus history)
• Agricultural technology
• Political movements and radical pamphlets
• 19th-century British poetry
• Theater history
• History of natural sciences
• Nature writing

The library also houses the Michael and Margaret B. Harrison Western Research Center Collection, comprising 21,000 volumes relating to the Trans-Mississippi West.

The library relies on remote storage at the UC Shared Library Facility-North (SLF-N) as a secure preservation environment for many of its rare materials.

Learn more about searching for materials in Archives and Special Collections.

Many of our unprocessed collections are represented in the Online Archive of California. Those that are not yet represented in OAC are briefly described in this document [download spreadsheet]. The library is pleased to answer questions about relevant unprocessed hidden collections in advance of application submission, and will discuss potential access to these materials with recipients based on their research questions or subject interests.

Special Thanks

These research travel grants are made possible by the generous support of donors to the UC Davis Library.