William T. Grant Foundation: Research Grants on Reducing Inequality (US)

Deadline: 13-Jan-21

William T. Grant Foundation is pleased to announce Research Grants on Reducing Inequality to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in youth outcomes.

Applications for research grants on reducing inequality must:

• Major research grants on reducing inequality typically range between $100,000 and $600,000 and cover two to three years of support. Projects involving secondary data analysis are 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

• Officers’ research grants on reducing inequality are a separate funding mechanism for smaller projects with budgets ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. Some are stand-alone projects; others build off larger projects. The budget should be appropriate for the activities proposed. 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.

Eligibility Criteria

Eligible Organizations

• Grants are made to organizations, not individuals. Grants are limited, without exception, to tax-exempt organizations. A copy of the Internal Revenue Service tax-exempt status determination letter is required from each applying organization. We do not support or make contributions to building funds, fundraising drives, endowment funds, general operating budgets, or scholarships.

Eligible Principal Investigators

• Please consult with your institution about their eligibility criteria regarding who can act as Principal Investigator (PI) or Co-Principal Investigator on a grant.

Selection Criteria 

All letters of inquiry will be reviewed internally. The letter of inquiry functions as a mini-proposal, and should meet the selection criteria detailed below:

Fit with Reducing Inequality Focus Area

Proposals for research on reducing inequality must:

• Identify a specific inequality in youth outcomes and show that the outcomes are currently unequal by engaging with the extant literature on the causes and consequences of inequality.
• Make a compelling case for the basis of inequality the study will address.
• Articulate how findings from your research will help build, test, or increase understanding of a specific program, policy, or practice to reduce the specific inequality that you have identified.
• Develop a clear case for exactly how the study will inform responses to inequality. Please note that studies that primarily focus on documenting the causes and consequences of inequality are not a fit with their interests; it is not adequate to propose a study that will document inequality and conclude with a general statement that research will be relevant for policy and practice. Rather, the letter of inquiry should clearly demonstrate how findings will inform policies, practices, or programs that can or will be implemented through organizations, institutions, and/or systems.

Conceptualization and Relevance

• Proposals must reflect a mastery of relevant theory and empirical findings, and clearly state the theoretical and empirical contributions they will make to the existing research base.
• Projects may focus on either generating or testing theory, depending on the state of knowledge about a topic.
• Although they do not expect that anyone project will or should impact policy or practice on its own, all proposals should discuss how the findings will be relevant to policy or practice.

Methods

• Projects should employ rigorous methods that are commensurate with the proposal’s goals. The Foundation welcomes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods projects.
• The study’s design, methods, and analysis plan should fit the research questions. Further, the description of the research design should make clear how the empirical work will test, refine, or elaborate specific theoretical notions. Quantitative analyses might emphasize hypotheses and plans for testing them, while qualitative analyses might elaborate on how the research will illuminate processes underlying programs, policies, or practices.
• Plans for case selection, sampling, and measurement should clearly state why they are well-suited to address the research questions or hypotheses. For example, samples should be appropriate in size and composition to answer the study’s questions. Qualitative case selection—whether critical, comparative or otherwise—should also be appropriate to answer the proposed questions.
• The quantitative and/or qualitative analysis plan should demonstrate awareness of the strengths and limits of the specific analytic techniques and how they will be applied in the current case.
• If proposing mixed methods, plans for integrating the methods and data should be clear and compelling.
• Where relevant, attention should be paid to the generalizability of findings.
• Quantitative studies should describe the statistical power to detect meaningful effects.
• The proposal must demonstrate adequate consideration of the gender, ethnic, and cultural appropriateness of concepts, methods, and measures.

Feasibility

• The methods, time frame, staffing plan, and other resources must be realistic.
• Prior training and publications should demonstrate that the applicant has a track record of conducting strong research and communicating it successfully.

Where appropriate, they value projects that:

• Harness the learning potential of mixed methods and interdisciplinary work;
• Involve practitioners or policymakers in meaningful ways to shape the research questions, interpret preliminary and final results, and communicate their implications for policy and practice;
• Combine senior and junior staff in ways that facilitate mentoring of junior staff;
• Are led by members of racial or ethnic groups underrepresented in academic fields;
• Generate data useful to other researchers and make such data available for public use; and
• Demonstrate significant creativity and the potential to change the field by, for example, introducing new research paradigms or challenging existing ones.

For more information, visit http://wtgrantfoundation.org/grants/research-grants-reducing-inequality