Council of American Overseas Research Centers


The Council of American Overseas Research Centers is a private not-for-profit association of centers that research, conserve and record cultural heritage and modern societies.
CAORC, founded in 1981, helps arrange research projects that span national boundaries, in which member centers collaborate.

Funding

The council is funded in part by the United States Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Smithsonian Institution, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Getty Foundation, as well as through fees paid by members.

Fellowships

CAORC offers two fellowship programs, the NEH Senior Research Fellowship and Multi-Country Research Fellowship.
The NEH fellowship supports advanced research in the humanities for U.S. postdoctoral scholars, and foreign national postdoctoral scholars who have been residents in the US for three or more years.
The Multi-Country fellowship supports advanced regional or trans-regional research in the humanities, social sciences, or allied natural sciences for U.S. doctoral candidates and scholars who have already earned their Ph.D.
Under the National Security Language Initiative, the United States Department of State funds scholarships in the Critical Language Scholarship Program that were originally organized by CAORC.

Responsive Preservation Initiative (RPI) for Cultural Heritage Resources

CAORC administers the Responsive Preservation Initiative for Cultural Heritage Resources, supported by the JM Kaplan Fund. The RPI program is designed to fund projects for urgent, emergent, or priority issues that need to be addressed quickly. The program provides grants for rapid emergency projects in Algeria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, The Palestinian Territories, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yemen.

West African Acquisitions Pilot Project (WAAPP)

CAORC, in collaboration with the West African Research Association and West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal, launched an initiative with the Library of Congress in 2010 to expand the collection of scholarly resources for U.S. and West African universities and institutions by collecting, documenting and digitizing published material and ephemera in eleven countries, including: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, the Gambia, Guinea Conakry, Mali, Niger, Chad, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo.

Member Centers

The CAORC Member Centers as of 2018 are: