Step1
Tell us the project
Discipline, question, sites, season, duration and funding position. Whether you are applying, awarded or already in the country changes what is useful to you.
Research and fieldwork
Fieldwork has its own logistics.
Affiliation, permits, interpreters, vehicles and camps for Fulbright grantees, doctoral candidates and international field projects.
Grant committees fund research questions. They do not fund the four months of arranging that stands between the question and the field, and most first-time researchers in Mongolia underestimate every part of it.
We work with Fulbright grantees, doctoral candidates, postdocs and institutional field projects on the parts that are not scholarship: host affiliation, permits, interpreters and research assistants, vehicles and drivers who know the terrain, remote camps, and the costed logistics your budget section needs. We come at this from inside the work rather than outside it — our own founder runs field research in Mongolia and has held grants that required exactly this paperwork.
What we do.
Set out clearly, so you can see what sits with us and what stays with you.
We handle
- Introductions towards host institutional affiliation with Mongolian universities and research institutes
- Guidance on research permissions, protected-area access and border-zone permits, and applications where we can make them
- Interpreters and research assistants matched to your subject and briefed on your terminology
- Vehicles, drivers, cooks and mobile camps for field seasons of any length
- Written logistics brief covering distances, seasonality, fuel gaps, coverage and evacuation times for your specific sites
- Costed budgets and a formal quotation on letterhead for grant applications, at no charge
- Settling-in support in Ulaanbaatar: accommodation search, SIM, banking, orientation and language tutor introductions
- A 24-hour in-country contact for the duration of your fieldwork
You handle
- Your research design, ethics approval and institutional review — that is yours and your university’s
- Academic supervision or co-authorship, unless separately agreed as a collaboration
- Visa and immigration applications, though we will advise and provide supporting documentation
- Sample export permits and any CITES or access-and-benefit-sharing paperwork, which must go through your host institution
- Government and institutional fees, passed through at cost
Pricing.
Quoted per project, in writing, so you can build a budget before you commit.
Long field seasons and repeat visits are quoted at reduced rates — the arranging is largely a fixed cost, so a second season costs considerably less than the first. Student budgets are worth telling us about; we would rather scale the support than lose the project.
Government fees, permits and third-party costs are passed through at cost with receipts. A written quotation on letterhead is available for your budget or grant application at no charge.
How it works.
Most of this happens long before you fly.
Step2
We write the logistics brief
What your sites actually involve: travel times, road conditions by season, where the herding households you need will be at that time of year, fuel and supply gaps, mobile coverage, and how far you are from a hospital.
Step3
Budget and quotation
A costed field plan, and a formal quotation on letterhead if your application needs one. This is free, because a funded project is worth more to us than a quotation fee.
Step4
Affiliation and permissions
Introductions towards a host institution, and the permit work that follows. This is the part with the longest lead time and the part most often left too late.
Step5
The field season
Vehicles, drivers, interpreters, camp and supply runs, with a number that answers when something breaks. We work to your schedule and your methods, not a tour itinerary.
Worth knowing.
The details that decide whether a project runs or stalls.
Start early, it is slow
Fulbright strongly encourages an affiliation letter with the application itself, and institutional relationships in Mongolia move at the speed of relationships. Six months before you fly is not early.
Budget for it properly
Fulbright grantees without Mongolian are expected to study it alongside their research. Even with good Mongolian, Kazakh matters in the far west and a research interpreter is a different hire from a tour guide.
Permits before collection
Biological sampling, archaeological material and anything leaving the country carry their own permissions, and access-and-benefit-sharing obligations apply. These go through your host institution and cannot be retro-fitted afterwards.
Consent is not a form
Herding households host researchers season after season and remember how the last one behaved. We agree purpose, time, payment and what happens to the findings before work begins, in the local language.
Questions.
Asked often enough to answer here.
I am applying for a Fulbright. Can you help before I am funded?
Yes, and this is the best time to talk to us. A costed logistics plan and a quotation on letterhead strengthen a budget section, and we do not charge for either.
Can you help find a host institution?
We can make introductions and advise on who fits your subject. The affiliation itself is between you and the institution, and a letter that took a real conversation is worth more than one we arranged for you.
Do you work with student budgets?
Yes. Tell us what you actually have. We would rather scale the support to the budget than watch a project not happen — and doctoral fieldwork tends to come back for a second and third season.
We are an institutional project, not an individual. Does that change things?
Only in scale. Multi-vehicle, multi-season projects with equipment and sample logistics are exactly what the percentage model is for.
Can you provide drone survey support?
Yes, subject to civil aviation registration and permission, which we handle. Survey flying in protected areas needs the protected-area authority as well, and border zones need their own permit.
Do you expect co-authorship?
No. We are logistics, not collaborators, unless you propose otherwise and it is agreed in writing at the outset.
Talk to us before you submit.
A costed field plan strengthens an application, and it costs you nothing to ask for one.
Request this serviceOther services.
Most projects need two or three of these together.