Deadline: 16 June 2020
The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is inviting proposals from scholars in the social sciences and related fields for the Social Data Research Fellowship and the Social Data Dissertation Fellowship.
The Social Data Research Fellowship and the Social Data Dissertation Fellowship, new endeavors of the Social Science Research Council, with support from Omidyar Network, seek to encourage multifaceted pathways for the collection and analysis of social data, with the larger aim of cultivating robust research on technology and society. In particular, they are interested in supporting research that makes creative use of available social data to investigate how social media interact with democracy and elections. Expanding ethical scholarly access, use, and analysis of a range of social data is critical to understanding the complex ways that social media and other technologies impact political life and processes.
Focus Areas
These fellowships will support research projects of up to 12 months in length that are focused on two key areas:
- Advancing scholarly research on the role of social media in elections and democracy, with an emphasis on the 2020 US elections, including local, state, and/or national primary or general elections. Topics may include (but are not limited to) disinformation, polarization, election integrity, political engagement, political advertising, microtargeting, voter suppression, forms of algorithmic bias related to elections, the impact of news reporting and changes to the media ecosystem, or other related areas. Research that explores more than one social media platform or the relationship between social media platforms is particularly welcome, as is research that explores the disproportionate effects on the political participation of women and under-represented groups.
- Expanding best practices and methods for accessing and analyzing relevant data that can inform our understanding of the impact of social media on democracy, including (but not limited to) new methods of data collection and sharing; exploring implications for data privacy and ethics; alternative proxy data to inform broader understanding of proprietary social media data; and ethnographic, journalistic, or other qualitative approaches to data collection.
Funding Information
- For the Social Data Research Fellowship: Project budgets for the Social Data Research Fellowship may not exceed $50,000.
- For the Social Data Dissertation Fellowship: Project budgets for the Social Data Dissertation Fellowship may not exceed $15,000.
Eligibility Criteria
- The Social Data Research Fellowship program is open to researchers who hold a PhD in a relevant discipline and are based at an institution of higher education (college or university) or a non-profit focused on social research. These awards may not exceed $50,000 US.
- The Social Data Dissertation Fellowship program is open to PhD students who are actively enrolled in a PhD program, who may apply for awards of up to $15,000 US in support of dissertation research.
- Applicants to the program should have completed all PhD coursework by the beginning of the fellowship term.
- Applicants whose primary research affiliation is to a partisan organization are not eligible, nor are projects with a primarily partisan rather than scientific objective.
- Applicants should be prepared to provide evidence that their research project will be reviewed by a Common Rule-compliant University Institutional Review Board (IRB) or the international equivalent. However, IRB review is not required at the time of application.
Proposal Requirements
- The proposal requires the following:
- Application Form
- Project Narrative
- Data Management Plan
- CV
- Budget
- Letter of Affiliation
- All proposals should use no less than 1-inch margins (2.54 cm), with a font size no less than 11 pt. Proposals should be single-spaced.
For more information, visit https://www.ssrc.org/fellowships/view/social-data-research-and-dissertation-fellowships/