William T. Grant Foundation Research

• Grants on Reducing Inequality – The research grants programs support high-quality field-initiated studies that are relevant to policies and practices that affect the lives of young people ages 5 to 25 in the United States. Research proposals are evaluated on the basis of their fit with a given focus area; the strength and feasibility of their designs, methods, and analyses; their potential to inform change; and their contribution to theory and empirical evidence. In our focus area of reducing inequality, we support research to build, test, and increase understanding of approaches to reducing inequality in youth outcomes, especially on the basis of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins. We are interested in research on programs, policies, and practices to reduce inequality in academic, social, behavioral, and economic outcomes.
  • Application due date: January 9, 2019
  • http://wtgrantfoundation.org/grants/research-grants-reducing-inequality

• Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence – The research grants programs support high-quality field-initiated studies that are relevant to policies and practices that affect the lives of young people ages 5 to 25 in the United States. Research proposals are evaluated on the basis of their fit with a given focus area; the strength and feasibility of their designs, methods, and analyses; their potential to inform change; and their contribution to theory and empirical evidence. In our focus area of improving the use of research evidence, we support research to identify, build, and test strategies to ensure that research evidence is used in ways that benefit youth. We are particularly interested in research on improving the use of research evidence by state and local decision makers, mid-level managers, and intermediaries.
  • Application due date: January 9, 2019
  • http://wtgrantfoundation.org/grants/research-grants-improving-use-research-evidence

The Retirement Research Foundation Responsive Grants
The Retirement Research Foundation is one of the first private foundations in the nation devoted exclusively to aging and retirement issues. RRF’s Responsive Grants program supports projects that have a significant focus on older adults, ages 65 and over, in the following areas:

• Advocacy – Achieve enduring social change around issues that affect older Americans
• Direct Service – Improve availability and quality of community-based and residential long-term services and supports
• Professional Education and Training – Increase the competency of professionals and paraprofessionals who serve older adults
• Research – Seek causes and solutions to significant problems for older adults
  • Application Deadlines: February 1, May 1 and August 1 each year.
  • http://www.rrf.org/grants/responsive-grants

W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research 2019 Early Career Research Awards

• The Upjohn Institute requests proposals for Early Career Research Awards (formerly called Mini-Grants). These grants are intended to provide resources to junior faculty (untenured and within six years of having earned a PhD) to carry out policy-related research on labor market issues. The Institute encourages research proposals on all issues related to labor markets and public workforce policy. Early Career Research Award recipients are expected to write a research paper based on the funded work and submit the paper for the Institute’s working paper series. The working paper will be included in the Institute’s repository—where it will be included among papers authored by a notable cohort of scholars in economics and public policy—and it will be submitted to SSRN and listed with RePEc. We also encourage ECRA authors to submit the paper to a peer-reviewed journal and to prepare a synopsis of the research for possible publication in the Institute’s newsletter, Employment Research.
  • Application deadline: January 25, 2019
  • https://upjohn.org/about-us/news-information/grant-opportunities

NSF Developmental Sciences

• DS supports basic research that increases our understanding of cognitive, linguistic, social, cultural, and biological processes related to human development across the lifespan. Research supported by this program will add to our knowledge of the underlying developmental processes that support social, cognitive, and behavioral functioning, thereby illuminating ways for individuals to live productive lives as members of society.
• DS supports research that addresses developmental processes within the domains of cognitive, social, emotional, and motor development across the lifespan by working with any appropriate populations for the topics of interest including infants, children, adolescents, adults, and non-human animals. The program also supports research investigating factors that affect developmental change including family, peers, school, community, culture, media, physical, genetic, and epigenetic influences. Additional priorities include research that: incorporates multidisciplinary, multi-method, microgenetic, and longitudinal approaches; develops new methods, models, and theories for studying development; includes participants from a range of ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and cultures; and integrates different processes (e.g., memory, emotion, perception, cognition), levels of analysis (e.g., behavioral, social, neural), and time scales.
  • Proposal target date: January 15, 2019
  • https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=8671

NSF Political Science

• The Political Science Program supports scientific research that advances knowledge and understanding of citizenship, government, and politics. Research proposals are expected to be theoretically motivated, conceptually precise, methodologically rigorous, and empirically oriented. Substantive areas include, but are not limited to, American government and politics, comparative government and politics, international relations, political behavior, political economy, and political institutions.
• In recent years, program awards have supported research projects on bargaining processes; campaigns and elections, electoral choice, and electoral systems; citizen support in emerging and established democracies; democratization, political change, and regime transitions; domestic and international conflict; international political economy; party activism; political psychology and political tolerance. The Program also has supported research experiences for undergraduate students and infrastructural activities, including methodological innovations, in the discipline.
  • Proposal target date: January 15, 2019
  • https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5418

NSF Social Psychology

• The Social Psychology Program at NSF supports basic research on human social behavior, including cultural differences and development over the life span.
• Among the many research topics supported are: attitude formation and change, social cognition, personality processes, interpersonal relations and group processes, the self, emotion, social comparison and social influence, and the psychophysiological and neurophysiological bases of social behavior.
• The scientific merit of a proposal depends on four important factors: (1) The problems investigated must be theoretically grounded. (2) The research should be based on empirical observation or be subject to empirical validation. (3) The research design must be appropriate to the questions asked. (4) The proposed research must advance basic understanding of social behavior.
  • Proposal target date: January 15, 2019
  • https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5712

NSF Sociology

• The Sociology Program supports basic research on all forms of human social organization — societies, institutions, groups and demography — and processes of individual and institutional change. The Program encourages theoretically focused empirical investigations aimed at improving the explanation of fundamental social processes. Included is research on organizations and organizational behavior, population dynamics, social movements, social groups, labor force participation, stratification and mobility, family, social networks, socialization, gender, race and the sociology of science and technology. The Program supports both original data collections and secondary data analysis that use the full range of quantitative and qualitative methodological tools. Theoretically grounded projects that offer methodological innovations and improvements for data collection and analysis are also welcomed.
• The Sociology Program also funds doctoral dissertation research to defray direct costs associated with conducting research, for example, dataset acquisition, additional statistical or methodological training, meeting with scholars associated with original datasets, and fieldwork away from the student’s home campus.
  • Proposal target Date: January 15, 2019
  • https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5369

NSF Economics

• The Economics program supports research designed to improve the understanding of the processes and institutions of the U.S. economy and of the world system of which it is a part. This program also strengthens both empirical and theoretical economic analysis as well as the methods for rigorous research on economic behavior. It supports research in almost every area of economics, including econometrics, economic history, environmental economics, finance, industrial organization, international economics, labor economics, macroeconomics, mathematical economics, and public finance. The Economics program welcomes proposals for individual or multi-investigator research projects, doctoral dissertation improvement awards, conferences, symposia, experimental research, data collection and dissemination, computer equipment and other instrumentation, and research experience for undergraduates. The program places a high priority on interdisciplinary research. Investigators are encouraged to submit proposals of joint interest to the Economics Program and other NSF programs and NSF initiative areas. The program places a high priority on broadening participation and encourages proposals from junior faculty, women, other underrepresented minorities, Research Undergraduate Institutions, and EPSCoR states. The program also funds conferences and interdisciplinary research that strengthens links among economics and the other social and behavioral sciences as well as mathematics and statistics.
  • Proposal target date: January 18, 2019
  • https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5437&org=NSF&sel_org=NSF&from=fund

Questions? Contact the OSP Proposal Development Team