The William R. Waters Research Grant was established in 1999 in honor of William R. Waters, editor of the Review of Social Economy for many years and President of ASE in 1987. The purpose of the William R. Waters Research Grant Program is to inspire scholars to organize their research in social economics and social economy along the lines suggested by William Waters in his 1988 presidential address to the Association for Social Economics:
“The major concern of social economics is explaining the economy in its broadest aspects; that is, showing how human beings deal with the ordinary business of using human and physical resources to achieve a level of material comfort. Explanation includes cultural, political, and ethical details as they are needed for a full understanding. As in any economics, there are three parts to social economics. First is the philosophical base of the social economist, which may or may not be a reflection of the philosophical base or ethos of the society he/she is studying. Social economics (or any economics) builds upon it. It is the hard core as in the recent popular literature of the philosophy of science. The second part of the discipline is a description of the significant characteristics of the economy. The economist must observe the multiplicity of economic reality and abstract those characteristics that are substantive. The two together, the philosophical premises and the empirical observations, will determine the third part of the discipline, social economic policy. Policy formulation is thus a mix of the first two.”
William R. Waters, presidential address, “Social Economics: A Solidarist Perspective,” Review of Social Economy, 1988, p. 113 ff.
The research grant is for promising graduate students in Ph.D. programs who have not yet completed their dissertation, those holding post-doctoral positions, and for new faculty members who have not yet been granted tenure or who are tenured but have not yet achieved the rank of Associate Professor (or its equivalent outside the US). The current amount of the annual grant is up to $5000.
To apply for the current round of grant funding, the following materials need to be submitted by 5pm Eastern Standard Time on Friday October 31, 2025:
- A completed cover sheet.
- A 4 to 5 page narrative (in 12 pt Times New Roman font single-spaced) explaining the following:
- The purpose of the project: What will be learned from the research to be undertaken, and what will be its contribution to knowledge? What are the expected outputs from the work?
- A description of the research project to be undertaken, including the issues to be examined, the research methods to be employed (this needs to be sufficiently detailed), and why this constitutes innovative work in comparison to the available evidence in the field.
- The relationship of the project to social economics: What conceptual frameworks, topical concerns, and/or empirical methodologies drawn from social economics will be used in the present project? How is the project expected to contribute to social economics?
- The plan of work: Include a timetable for the project, resources to be used, travel plans, etc.
- The estimated budget: Indicate all costs that would be covered by the grant (e.g., travel expenses, research costs, summer stipend, etc.)
- An up-to-date curriculum vitae.
- Two letters of recommendation: For students, one letter should be from their dissertation advisor.
The winner of the Waters grant will be announced at the ASE Presidential Breakfast at the ASSA Meetings in January 2026.
All application materials including letters of recommendation (when possible) should be submitted in the form of one PDF file to with the subject line “WATERS GRANT-[LAST NAME]”. If letter writers request to submit separately, candidates should advise them to use the subject line “WATERS GRANT-[CANDIDATE LAST NAME]-RECOMMENDATION” If there are any questions, please write to the committee chair, ASE Vice President, Anita Alves Pena at .