Discovery Social Sciences Hub

Berkeley Discovery fosters equitable access to the core of the university’s mission: research toward the creation and stewardship of knowledge. It offers innovative experiences in and beyond the classroom that support students in their transformations from learner to practitioner, from reader to critic, and from consumer to producer of knowledge.

The Discovery Research Hubs are sites for an expanded relationship between graduate student researchers and undergraduate mentees. This is the pilot year for the Social Sciences Research Hub.  This call is going out solely to Sociology graduate students in this initial year of the program. By empowering graduate students to lead and manage their own research teams, these hubs support Berkeley’s innovative research agendas across fields by further entwining the individual learning experiences of undergraduate students with the larger academic pursuits of the university’s community. The Discovery Social Sciences Hub fosters collaborations in the social sciences, and will support up to 5 research teams in the 2025-26 academic year. 

The Program  

Social Science Discovery Fellows will assemble small working groups of undergraduate student researchers around their research project. These undergraduate students will come with, and may even be recruited for, their own interests in some part of the Discovery Fellow’s research. 

The Discovery Research Hub supports the development of graduate students' research (typically but not necessarily their dissertations) while developing their leadership and mentorship skills. The Discovery Fellows and undergraduate student researchers gather about five times each semester in workshops to learn skills for creating productive mentoring relationships, applying for grants and fellowships, and developing coherent presentations. This workshop series, facilitated by the Discovery Initiative, fosters community among the graduate and undergraduate students which in turn has the potential to lead to further collaboration among them, their home departments, and scholars in the social sciences across campus.

Graduate Discovery Fellows will:

• Assemble small groups of 2-4 undergraduate student researchers, who work on portions of their research. These will be your team for the full 2025-26 academic year. 

• Lead their team of undergraduates through a semester of intensive study, gaining experience in project leadership while acquiring experience as a mentor.

• Eat lunch with one another, the Discovery team, and select speakers at monthly meetings of a workshop series where they’ll hear talks and develop professional skills.

• Moderate a research symposium based around the work of their team. At this event, they will have a chance to showcase the work of each team.  

• Be supported in their work through a stipend of $2,000 - $4,000 per semester (depending on the number of mentees) in addition to $500 in research funds for the purchase of books, software, travel, or other research supplies needed by their research team.  

Program Structure

As a general outline, the program begins after acceptance with a Zoom meeting to workshop position postings and prepare you to recruit students. We will then meet, as outlined above, several times across the semester for professionalization and leadership workshops. There will be 1-on-1 meetings with the program facilitator across the semester to check in on your groups and your work as well, and finally the symposium at the end of the year where we will celebrate the work you and your students have done across the semesters with a mini conference. 

Financial Support 

Each Discovery Fellow receives a stipend of $1,000 per mentee each semester and is required to work with a minimum of two students. As a part of the program, there is also an opportunity to use a small amount of research funds, up to $500 per team, to acquire any materials needed to facilitate our work. 

How to Apply:

To apply to become a Social Science Discovery Fellow, please complete the application form here.  The application includes the following:

• A current abstract for your research project, with a few subfields or keywords identified for undergraduates to understand the project [NB: Place these near the top.] 

• A project statement that outlines the specific work you will be targeting for completion or advancement with your team. (Maybe you have data that needs collecting, cleaning, or analyzing. Try to think about how the students can support you while also advancing their own interests!) 

• A multi-paragraph sketch of learning outcomes and an academic year timeline, (broken down by semester), for your research team. What skills or knowledge will the undergraduates develop while working on your project? What experiences or assignments will help them to develop those skills or knowledge? What intermediate goals will you set for your team throughout the year to achieve your end goal?

• A budget for any research expenses. These could be funds for local travel to a fieldsite or archive, software licences, books the undergraduates should read to familiarize themselves with the substance or methodology of the project, transcription fees, or other research expenses.