Title VIII Prize
The Title VIII Prize sponsored by the U.S. Department of State's Title VIII Program, was established in 2006 and is awarded by the AAASS for two distinguished policy papers - one on Southeast European Affairs and one on Eurasian Affairs in any policy relevant discipline.
Each of the two prizes carries a cash award.
No Title VIII Prize was awarded in 2007. We will post the information about the 2008 competition as soon as we receive it.
Rules of eligibility
Rules of eligibility for the AAASS Title VIII prize competition are as follows:
- The policy paper must have been submitted in two previous calendar years;
- Authors must be graduate students or recent graduates (within the past three years) who are citizens or permanent residents of the United States;
- The author is not required to have received prior Title VIII funding for research or language training, and the submission does not necessarily need to have been published to be eligible;
- The policy paper must be based on the author's own work and can be any type of article, graduate school term paper, policy brief, white paper, or analytical assessment, preferably by a single author, or by no more than two authors;
- There is no limit to the number of pages submitted, however the applicant should demonstrate an understanding of policy style and format and edit appropriately;
- Any submission that is a summary of a longer work (e.g., policy brief, etc.) should include the longer work for comparison purposes (e.g., dissertation chapter, research paper, etc.)
- Works may deal with any area of Southeast Europe, Russia, or Eurasia; works may cover cross-border, regional, or comparative issues that include countries outside these specific regions as long as the eligible countries are a key component of the policy paper;
- Policy papers that reflect the author's understanding of foreign policy priorities and are written in a length and style accessible to U.S. Government policy makers, program officers and analysts will be considered very competitive;
- Textbooks, collections, translations, bibliographies, and reference works are ineligible.
Prize-winning policy papers are published and distributed throughout the U.S. federal government interagency community by the U.S. Department of State, and the author(s) may be invited as a featured speaker for the Title VIII Policy Forum Series at the State Department.
The details of the 2008 AAASS Title VIII prize competition will be announced in January 2008.
2006 Title VIII Award Winners
The 2006 Title VIII Award for Distinguished Policy Paper on Eurasia for an outstanding policy paper on Eurasian Affairs by a graduate student or recent Master's or PhD graduate was awarded to Brian Grodsky who received his Ph.D. from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor in August 2006, and is currently Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, for the essay "Civil Society and Democratization: Warnings from Uzbekistan."
The 2006 Title VIII Award for Distinguished Policy Paper on Eastern Europe for an outstanding policy paper on East European Affairs by a graduate student or recent Master's or PhD graduate was awarded to Michael Powell, who received his Ph.D. from Rice University in Spring 2006 for the essay "NGO Networking and the Passage of a Transparency Initiative in Poland."
2006 Title VIII Honorable Mentions
The following scholars each received honorable mention for an outstanding policy paper on Eurasian Affairs.
- Vanja Mladineo and Kathryn Roman - "Evolving Democratization Assistance: The Kyrgyz Model"
- Jordan Hamory - "Overcoming Barriers to Substitution Therapy in Ukraine (HIV/AIDS)"
