CFAs: Research Grants on Improving the use of Research Evidence (US)

Deadline: 08-Jan-2025

The William T. Grant Foundation is accepting applications for the Research Grants on Improving the use of Research Evidence.

This program funds research studies that advance theory and build empirical knowledge on ways to improve the use of research evidence by policymakers, agency leaders, organizational managers, intermediaries, community organizers, and other decision-makers that shape youth-serving systems in the United States.

This program supports research on strategies focused on improving the use of research evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States.

Aims

• Proposed studies must pursue one of the following aims:
  • Building, identifying, or testing strategies to improve the use of existing research evidence 
    • This may include:
      • Studies of strategies, mechanisms, or conditions that foster more routine and constructive uses of existing research evidence by decision-makers.
      • Studies that test the effects of deliberate efforts to improve routine and beneficial uses of research in decision-making.
      • Studies to identify the relationships and organizational structures that lead to the prioritization of decision-makers’ needs in developing research agendas.
      • Studies that examine ways to optimize organized collaborations among researchers, decision-makers, intermediaries, and other stakeholders to benefit youth.
  • Testing whether strategies that improve the use of research evidence in turn improve decision-making and youth outcomes
    • This may include:
      • Studies that examine the impact of research use on youth outcomes and the conditions under which using research evidence improves outcomes.
      • The notion that using research will improve youth outcomes is a longstanding assumption, but there is little evidence to validate it. They suspect that the impact of research on outcomes may depend on a number of conditions, including the quality of the research and the quality of research use. One hypothesis is that the quality of the research and the quality of research use will work synergistically to yield strong outcomes for youth.
      • Studies to identify and test other conditions under which using research evidence improves youth outcomes.

Funding Information

• Major research grants: $100,000–$1,000,000 over 2–4 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
• Officers’ research grants: $25,000–$50,000 over 1–2 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible Organizations 
  • The Foundation makes grants only to tax-exempt organizations. They do not make grants to individuals.
  • They encourage proposals from organizations that are under-represented among grantee institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Alaska NativeServing Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions.
• Eligible Principal Investigators 
  • The Foundation defers to the applying organization’s criteria for who is eligible to act as a Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator on a grant. In general, they expect that all investigators will have the experience and skills to carry out the proposed work.
  • They strive to support a diverse group of researchers in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, and seniority, and they encourage research projects led by Black or African American, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Asian or Pacific Islander American researchers.

For more information, visit William T. Grant Foundation.