Deadline: 2-Nov-22
Meta is offering awards to global social science researchers interested in exploring integrity issues related to social communication technologies.
Meta will provide a total of $1,000,000 USD in funding for research proposals that aims to enrich its understanding of challenges related to integrity issues on social media and social technology platforms. The goal for these awards is to support the growth of scientific knowledge in these spaces and to contribute to a shared understanding across the broader scientific community and technology industry on how social technology companies can better address integrity issues on their platforms. Research is not restricted to focusing on Meta apps and technologies.
Areas of Interest
Research areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Interventions to counter misinformation: Meta welcomes proposals that explore how Meta can best measure the relative benefits and consequences of interventions to counter misinformation or provide access to authoritative content. In particular, Meta is interested in ways of reliably quantifying how these interventions can provide the most defense against harm.
- Information processing around sensational, hateful, divisive, or provocative problematic content: Meta welcomes proposals that explore the social, psychological, and cognitive variables involved in the consumption of “grey area” content experiences – sensational, provocative, divisive, hateful, misleading, polarizing, or biased information – received and produced on social media platforms.
- Violence and incitement, hateful and/or graphic content: Meta welcomes proposals that examine how people and organizations are leveraging social media to organize and potentially influence intergroup relations in their constituencies. Meta is interested in projects that probe the connection between online speech and subsequent consequences of both offline and online harms.
- Misinformation across formats: Meta welcomes proposals that investigate the role of non-textual media (images, videos, audio, etc.) on the effectiveness of and people’s engagement with misinformation. This area includes basic multimedia like infographics, memes, and audio, compared to more-complex video and emerging technological advances.
- Trust, legitimacy, and information quality: Meta welcomes proposals that examine social media users’ exposure to, interaction with, and understanding of qualities of information, especially their attitudes and interpretations of information quality, trust, and bias. Meta will also accept studies focusing on the dynamics and effects of information diversity, whether from the user audience or content producer perspectives.
- Coordinated harm and inauthentic behavior: Meta welcomes proposals that inspect information practices and flows across multiple communication technologies or mediums. In particular, individual, group, and community effects of information campaigns, inauthentic behavior, or coordinated activities across multiple communities, networks, channels, or platforms.
- Digital literacy, demographics, and misinformation: Meta welcomes proposals that explore the relation between digital literacy and vulnerability to misinformation in communication technologies. Especially in some emerging markets, social media platforms have gained many participants among those new to the internet and populations with lower exposure to technology.
- Successful proposals will demonstrate innovative and compelling social science research that has the potential to significantly advance the community’s understanding of the impact of technology on society. Proposals are encouraged with the following two emphases:
- Studies that draw on traditional social science methods like interviews, surveys, ethnographic observation, content analyses, and survey/behavioral experiments, or innovative mixed methodological approaches that combine these methods.
- Comparative research and inclusion of non-Western regions that have experienced a growth in social media platform use, including South and Central America, Sub-Saharan and North Africa, the Middle East, and Central, South, and Southeast Asia. Meta encourages proposals from researchers, or collaborations with researchers, based in the country/countries being researched.
Benefits
- Award amounts will be provided at two levels, $50,000 USD or $100,000 USD.
- Payment will be made to the PI’s host institution as an unrestricted gift. Overhead is limited to 5% for gifts.
Eligibility Criteria
- The proposal must comply with applicable U.S. and international laws, regulations, and policies.
- Applicants must be current faculty or employed in a role focused on research at an accredited academic institution, university, non-governmental institution, or non-profit organization. Students, including PhD students, are not eligible as applicants.
- Applicants must be the Principal Investigator on any resulting award.
- Meta cannot consider proposals submitted, prepared, or to be carried out by individuals residing in or affiliated with an academic institution, university, non-governmental institution, or non-profit located in a country or territory subject to comprehensive U.S. trade sanctions.
- Government officials (excluding faculty and staff of public universities, to the extent they may be considered government officials), political figures, and politically affiliated businesses (all as determined by Meta in its sole discretion) are not eligible.
- Applicants cannot be current employees or contractors at Meta or any of its affiliated brands.
- Proposals should include:
- A summary of the project (one to two pages), in English, explaining the area of focus, a description of techniques, any relevant prior work, and a timeline with milestones and expected outcomes.
- A draft budget description (one page) including an approximate cost of the award and explanation of how funds would be spent.
- Curriculum Vitae for all project participants.
- Organization details; this will include tax information and administrative contact details.
For more information, visit https://research.facebook.com/research-awards/2022-foundational-integrity-research-request-for-proposals/#timeline-and-dates