Research Grants on Reducing Inequality in the US

Deadline: 3-May-23

The William T. Grant Foundation is accepting applications for its Research Grants on Reducing Inequality to support research to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5-25 in the United States.

The Foundation prioritize studies that aim to reduce inequalities that exist along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins.

Funding Information

• Major Research Grants
  • $100,000 to $600,000 over 2-3 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
  • Projects involving secondary data analysis are typically at the lower end of the budget range, whereas projects involving new data collection and sample recruitment can be at the higher end. Proposals to launch experiments in which settings (e.g., classrooms, schools, youth programs) are randomly assigned to conditions sometimes have higher awards.
• Officers’ Research Grants
  • $25,000–$50,000 over 1-2 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
  • Studies may be stand-alone projects or may build off larger projects. The budget should be appropriate for the activities proposed.

Research Interests

The research interests center on studies that examine ways to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. The Foundation welcomes descriptive studies that clarify mechanisms for reducing inequality or elucidate how or why a specific program, policy, or practice operates to reduce inequality. The Foundation also welcomes intervention studies that examine attempts to reduce inequality. Finally, foundation welcomes studies that improve the measurement of inequality in ways that can enhance the work of researchers, practitioners, or policymakers.

The Foundation invites studies from a range of disciplines, fields, and methods, and foundation encourages investigations into various youth-serving systems, including justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, and education.

Applications for research grants on reducing inequality must:

• Identify a specific inequality in youth outcomes.
  • The Foundation is especially interested in research to reduce inequality in academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes.
    • Show that outcomes are unequal in a brief discussion of existing literature.
    • Highlight the main explanations for the unequal outcomes that are relevant for your study.
• Make a convincing case for the dimension(s) of inequality the study will address.
  • The Foundation is especially interested in research to reduce inequality along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origin status.
    • Be very specific in naming the groups on which the study will focus. Avoid vague terms such as “at-risk youth” or “vulnerable youth.”
    • Offer a well-developed conceptualization of inequality. Avoid treating dimensions of inequality (e.g., race, economic standing) as variables without providing conceptual and/or theoretical insight into why and how the identified inequality exists.
    • If proposing research that focuses on a dimension other than race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins, make a compelling case for this focus. Please note that in addition to the dimensions listed above, the foundation encourages research on reducing inequality for LGBTQ youth, particularly in intersection with at least one of the prioritized dimensions.
• Articulate how findings from your research will help build, test, or increase understanding of a program, policy, or practice to reduce the specific inequality that you have identified.
  • Draw on extant theoretical and empirical literature to provide a rationale for why the specific programs, policies, or practices under study will equalize outcomes between groups or improve outcomes of a particular group. In other words, specify your theory of change.
  • Identify how the study will investigate this rationale to determine whether it holds up to empirical scrutiny.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible Organizations
  • The Foundation makes grants only to tax-exempt organizations. The Foundation does not make grants to individuals.
  • They encourage proposals from organizations that are under-represented among grantee institutions, including Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Alaska Native-Serving Institutions, Native Hawaiian-Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs).
• 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, the foundation expects 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 the foundation encourages research projects led by Black or African American, Indigenous, Latinx, and/or Asian or Pacific Islander American researchers.
• Eligible Studies.
  • Only studies that:
    • Align with the stated research interests of this program and
    • Relate to the outcomes of young people between the ages of 5 and 25 in the United States are eligible for consideration.
  • They do not support non-research activities such as program implementation and operational costs, or make contributions to building funds, fundraising drives, endowment funds, general operating budgets, or scholarships. Applications for ineligible projects are screened out without further review.

For more information, visit WT Grant Foundation.