May 2017
Funding Opportunities in the Social Sciences

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Unless otherwise noted, all proposals to funders outside of Harvard must be submitted to the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) five business days prior to the sponsor deadline. We can help you navigate the routing process for your proposal.

Questions? Please contact Erin Hale, Senior Research Development Officer at erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu or 617-496-5252
Click on the links below to see additional information
Internal Opportunities
For a more comprehensive list of Harvard internal funding opportunities, please see  here .
External Opportunities
Non-Federal Opportunities:
Federal Opportunities:
sgrp
Deadlines: Rolling
Award Amount: Varies by program

This newly launched program is aimed at pulling together diverse, emerging research efforts on the topic of Solar Geoengineering. SGRP will support a diverse range of research in the social sciences. Examples include:
  • Research public perceptions and risk attitudes; e.g., use survey methods to explore how knowledge about solar geoengineering influences people's willingness to commit to emissions reduction.
  • Address concerns that solar geoengineering could reduce incentives to mitigate; e.g., explore the possibility of novel "Climate Clubs," in which a coalition of nations requires members to commit to major emissions reductions as a condition of participating in the decision-making process regarding whether and how much solar geoengineering should be deployed.
  • Fund at least two country studies to engage scientists and decision-makers in the Philippines and one other developing country in research on the risks, benefits, and governance of solar geoengineering.

 

There are three funding initiatives under this program:

  1. The Fellowship Program invites applications for post-doctoral and pre-doctoral fellowships, under the direct supervision of Harvard faculty. Fellowship awards will be for one to two years with possibility of renewal and graduate fellowships may, in some cases, have longer initial durations. Applicants are encouraged to communicate with their potential Harvard faculty sponsor before applying. Faculty who are interested in hosting a postdoctoral fellow or recruiting a graduate student are also encouraged to submit a brief letter of interest to SGRP's Advisory Committee. This program is open to early-career scientists within three years of earning their doctorate (for post-doctoral fellowships) or those admitted to or pursuing a Ph.D. (for pre-doctoral fellowships). Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis and the first round of reviews will take place on June 1, 2017. Applicants who wish to be considered in the initial review should submit before June 1. 
  2. Harvard Faculty Research Grants will provide direct research support for activities that cannot be effectively supported with individual students or fellows. That could involve multi-investigator collaborations, field or laboratory work in the sciences, or field or survey work in the social sciences. 
  3. The Residency Program will accept a small number of researchers focused on solar geoengineering to spend between 1 and 3 weeks at Harvard University, working directly with researchers at SGRP and other members of the Harvard community. The main purpose of this program is to enable visitors to work in collaboration with Harvard researchers and each other on discrete research projects. 
pfic
Deadline: May 31, 2017
Award Amount: up to $25,000
 
The PFIC was developed to promote engagement and collaboration on topics and activities of mutual intellectual interest that connect faculty with other faculty members and/or students across multiple Harvard Schools. The fund supports a variety of projects, including but not limited to cross-School interdisciplinary course support, working groups, and small-scale conferences. The designated faculty leader(s) must hold primary Harvard faculty appointments at the rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor, and the project must engage faculty and/or students from at least two Harvard Schools. Priority will be given to applicants who have not previously received funding from the grant. Colleagues from outside Harvard may be included as well.
fhb
Deadline: last day of August, November, February, and May
Award Amount: $40,000 for ladder faculty; $5,000 for doctoral students and postdocs
Eligible Applicants: Harvard University  full time doctoral students, post-doctoral fellows, and ladder faculty.

The FHBI provides seed grants to support transformative research in the social and behavioral sciences. Successful proposals will be those that promise to advance understanding of the social, institutional and biological mechanisms shaping human beliefs and behavior. Funds will be used to support interdisciplinary social science research projects based on innovative experimental or observational designs that make use of sophisticated quantitative methods. The Fund also supports seminars, conferences, and other research-related activities.
External Funding Opportunities
pwf
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: No specified limit. 2017 grants ranged from $25,000-$700,000.

The Public Welfare Foundation supports efforts to advance justice and opportunity for people in need. The Foundation looks for strategic points where its funds can make a significant difference and improve lives through policy and system reform that results in transformative change. The foundation focuses on three program areas: 
  • Criminal Justice: The Criminal Justice Program supports groups that are working to end the overincarceration of adults in the United States while also aiming to reduce racial disparities. 
  • Youth Justice: The Youth Justice Program supports groups working to advance a fair and effective community-based vision of youth justice, with a focus on ending the criminalization and incarceration of youth of color. 
  • Workers' Rights: The Workers' Rights Program supports policy and system reforms to improve the lives of low-wage working people in the United States, with a focus on securing their basic legal rights to safe, healthy, and fair conditions at work. 
radcliffe
Sponsor Deadline: September 14, 2017
Award Amount: $77,500 for one year with additional funds for project expenses

The Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program annually selects and supports 50 leading artists and scholars who have both exceptional promise and demonstrated accomplishments.  Scholars, scientists, and artists work on individual projects to generate new research, publications, art, and more. Fellows receive office or studio space and access to libraries and other resources at Harvard University during the fellowship year, which extends from early September 2018 through May 31, 2019. 
ssrc
Harvard OSP Deadline: September 8, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: September 15, 2017
Award Amount: Up to $10,000

The Negotiating Agreement in Congress Research Grants are designed to open a robust research field that explores various dimensions of political negotiation in Congress by charting new avenues of understanding and methodological directions. They seek to inspire a cohort of researchers with diverse backgrounds and sets of expertise to address the challenges of political negotiation through scholarship drawn from and/or relevant to multiple disciplines and approaches. Successful applicants will submit innovative proposals within fields that include, but are not limited to: political science, political theory, political economy, race and ethnic politics, law, history, gender studies, behavioral economics, social psychology, cognitive psychology, emotion and political judgment, anthropology, sociology, and communications. 
templeton
Letter of Intent Deadline: August 31, 2017
OSP Deadline (if invited to submit full proposal): January 24, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline (if invited): January 31, 2018
Award Amount: Individual grants vary in amount. Smallest active grant is about $35,000 and largest is $7.6 million.
 
The Foundation offers grants in support of research and public engagement in the following major Funding Areas:
  • The Science & the Big Questions Funding Area supports innovative efforts to address the deepest questions facing humankind. Why are we here? How can we flourish? What are the fundamental structures of reality? What can we know about the nature and purposes of the divine?
  • The Character Virtue Development funding area seeks to advance the science and practice of character, with a focus on moral, performance, civic, and intellectual virtues such as humility, gratitude, curiosity, diligence, and honesty.
  • The Individual Freedom & Free Markets Funding Area supports education, research, and grassroots efforts to promote individual freedom, free markets, free competition, and entrepreneurship. Grounded in the ideas of classical liberal political economy, we seek and develop projects that focus on individuals and their place in a free society. 
  • The Exceptional Cognitive Talent & Genius Funding Area supports programs that aim to recognize and nurture exceptional cognitive talent, especially for those at an early stage of life. This Funding Area also supports research concerning the nature of cognitive genius, including extraordinary creativity, curiosity, and imagination.
  • The Genetics Funding Area seeks to advance genetics research by supporting novel approaches and contrarian projects, especially research that is undervalued by traditional funding sources. In addition to basic and translational research, this Funding Area supports educational programs that increase public awareness concerning the ways in which genetics-related research and its applications can advance human flourishing at the individual, familial, and societal levels.
  • The Voluntary Family Planning Funding Area supports programs that provide such resources for parents and families worldwide.
aca
OSP review not required for letters of inquiry
Sponsor Letter of Inquiry Deadline: August 21, 2017
Award Amount: $150,000 maximum

This Russell Sage Foundation initiative will support innovative social science research on the social, economic and political effects of the Affordable Care Act. The foundation is especially interested in funding analyses that address important questions about the effects of the reform on outcomes such as financial security and family economic well-being, labor supply and demand, participation in other public programs, family and children's outcomes, and differential effects by age, race, ethnicity, nativity, or disability status.
rs_computational
OSP review not required for letters of inquiry
Sponsor Letter of Inquiry Deadline: August 21, 2017
Award Amount: $150,000 maximum

The Russell Sage Foundation's initiative on Computational Social Science (CSS) supports innovative social science research that brings new data and methods to bear on questions of interest in its core programs in Behavioral Economics, Future of Work, Race, Ethnicity and Immigration, and Social Inequality. Limited consideration will be given to questions that pertain to core methodologies, such as causal inference and innovations in data collection.

rs_bioSS
OSP review not required for letters of inquiry
Sponsor Letter of Inquiry Deadline: August 21, 2017
Award Amount: $150,000 maximum

This initiative will support innovative social science research on social and economic outcomes that improves our understanding of the interactive mechanisms by which environmental influences affect biological mechanisms, and vice versa. This includes research that: (1) estimates how the structured nature of the social environment and intra- and intergenerational social inequalities affect biological processes, (2) identifies which indicators of biological processes interact with the social environment to affect different life domains and how, and (3) yields new conceptual frameworks that holistically characterize the complex relationships among biological, psychological and environmental factors to predict a range of behavioral and social outcomes. The foundation is primarily interested in research that explores and improves our understanding of social and economic predictors and outcomes. 

sif
OSP review not require for concept papers
Sponsor Concept Paper Deadline: August 15, 2017
Award Amount: $10,000-$20,000

The Sociological Initiatives Foundation was established to support research that furthers social change, including language learning and behavior and its intersection with social and policy questions.

The Foundation specifically supports research that focuses on impacting:
  • Social policy
  • Institutional and educational practices
  • Linguistic issues (e.g. literacy, language loss and maintenance, language policy, language and national security, bilingualism, language and gender, language and law, language disabilities, language and health, language and education, different language cultures)
  • Community capacity and the organization of previously unorganized groups
The Foundation supports projects that address institutional rather than individual or behavioral change. It seeks to fund research and initiatives that provide insight into sociological and linguistic issues that can be useful to specific groups and or communities.
hfgf
Harvard OSP Deadline: July 24, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: August 1, 2017
Award Amount: $15,000 to $40,000 per year for one or two years

The foundation welcomes proposals from any of the natural and social sciences and the humanities that promise to increase understanding of the causes, manifestations, and control of violence and aggression. Highest priority is given to research that can increase understanding and amelioration of urgent problems of violence and aggression in the modern world. Questions that interest the foundation concern violence and aggression in relation to social change, intergroup conflict, war, terrorism, crime, and family relationships, among other subjects.
us-japan
OSP review not required for letters of inquiry
Sponsor Letter of Inquiry Deadline: July 15, 2017
Harvard OSP Deadline (if invited to submit full proposal): August 24, 2017
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline (by invitation): August 31, 2017
Award Amount: Not specified.  Recent grants have ranged from $5,000-$150,000

The United States-Japan Foundation supports US-Japan policy-related studies, initiatives and exchanges that help address issues of significant mutual concern to the United States and Japan. The Foundation seeks to respond to policy-relevant needs as identified by experts and practitioners in US-Japan policy studies field and we are therefore open to innovative projects. 
wtgrant_scholars
Harvard OSP Deadline: June 28, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: July 6, 2017
Award Amount: $350,000 over five years

Note: This is a limited submission opportunity and only one nomination may be submitted from FAS.  Interested applicants should contact Erin Hale at erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu to express interest in securing the FAS nomination. An internal application may be required.

The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports career development for promising early-career researchers. The program funds five-year research and mentoring plans that significantly expand junior researchers' expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas. 
The program supports research that increases understanding in one of two focus areas:
  • programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes, and
  • strategies to improve the use of research evidence in ways that benefit youth.
To be eligible, an applicant must have received his/her terminal degree (e.g., Ph.D., M.D.) within seven years of the submission deadline.
rsfvsp
OSP review not required
Sponsor Deadline: June 28, 2017
Award Amount:  Scholars are provided with an office at the Foundation, research assistance, computer and library facilities, and supplemental salary support of up to 50 percent of their academic year salary when unavailable from other sources (up to a maximum of $125,000)

The Russell Sage Foundation's Visiting Scholars Program  provides a unique opportunity for select scholars in the social, economic and behavioral sciences to pursue their research and writing while in residence at the Foundation's New York headquarters. Research carried out by Visiting Scholars constitutes an important part of the Foundation's ongoing effort to analyze and understand the complex and shifting nature of social and economic life in the United States. While Visiting Scholars typically work on projects related to the Foundation's  current programs , a few scholars whose research falls outside these areas are occasionally invited as well. 

srf
OSP review not required
Sponsor Deadline: June 23, 2017
Award Amount: $60,000 

The Smith Richardson Foundation sponsors an annual Strategy and Policy Fellows grant competition to support young scholars and policy thinkers on American foreign policy, international relations, international security, military policy, and diplomatic and military history.   The purpose of the program is to strengthen the U.S. community of scholars and researchers conducting policy analysis in these fields.  Within the academic community, this program supports junior or adjunct faculty, research associates, and post-docs who are engaged in policy-relevant research and writing.

asa
Harvard OSP Deadline: June 8, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: June 15, 2017
Award Amount: $8,000

The goal of this program is to nurture the development of scientific knowledge by funding small, groundbreaking research initiatives and other important scientific research activities such as conferences. FAD awards provide scholars with "seed money" for innovative research that has the potential for challenging the discipline, stimulating new lines of research, and creating new networks of scientific collaboration. The award is intended to provide opportunities for substantive and methodological breakthroughs, broaden the dissemination of scientific knowledge, and provide leverage for acquisition of additional research funds. 
fcd
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (OSP review not required): June 5, 2017
Harvard OSP Deadline (if invited): October 3, 2017
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline (if invited): October 10, 2017
Award Amount: Up to $225,000 over 2 years

The FCD Young Scholars Program (YSP) supports policy and practice-relevant research that is focused on the early learning and development needs of the nation's children who are growing up under conditions of economic insecurity and social exclusion.  YSP encourages applications from scholars who are: 
  • Themselves from historically disadvantaged or underrepresented groups, e.g., first-generation college graduates, and those from low-income communities. 
  • Scholars who represent a variety of disciplines and methodological approaches. 
All proposed research should focus on the ways in which the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of the early care and education workforce (ECE workforce) can support young children's growth and development across the birth through age eight continuum.   Eligible researchers must have received their doctoral degrees within one to seven years of application submission (i.e., January 1, 2009 through June 30, 2016).
rsf
OSP review not required for letter of inquiry
Sponsor Letter of Inquiry Deadline: May 31, 2017
Harvard OSP Deadline (if invited to submit full proposal): August 8, 2017
Sponsor  Full Proposal Deadline (by invitation): August 15, 2017
Award Amount: Up to $150,000
 
These awards are restricted to support for social science research within the following five program areas:
  • Behavioral Economics: The program on Behavioral Economics focuses on research that incorporates insights of psychology and other social sciences into the study of economic behavior.
  • Future of Work: The Future of Work program is concerned primarily with examining the causes and consequences of the declining quality of jobs for less- and moderately-educated workers in the U.S. economy and the role of changes in employer practices, the nature of the labor market and public policies on the employment, earnings, and the quality of jobs of American workers.
  • Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration: The Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration program is concerned with the social, economic, and political effects of the changing racial and ethnic composition of the U.S. population, including the transformation of communities and ideas about what it means to be American.
  • Social Inequality: The program in Social Inequality focuses on whether rising economic inequality has affected social, political, and economic institutions in the U.S., and the extent to which increased inequality has affected equality of opportunity, social mobility, and the intergenerational transmission of advantage.
neh_stipends
Harvard Internal Deadline: July 17, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: September 27, 2017
Award Amount: $6,000 for two consecutive months of full-time research and writing beginning May 2018 or later
 
Summer Stipends support individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Eligible projects usually result in articles, monographs, books, digital materials and publications, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly resources. Summer Stipends support continuous full-time work on a humanities project for a period of two consecutive months and support projects at any stage of development. Summer Stipends normally support work carried out during the summer months, but arrangements can be made for other times of the year.

This is a limited submission opportunity. Faculty members teaching full-time at colleges or universities must be nominated by their institutions to apply for a Summer Stipend. Harvard may nominate two faculty members for this program. 

nara
Harvard OSP Deadline: June 7, 2017
Sponsor Deadline: June 14, 2017
Award Amount: Up to $200,000 for  one year.  The sponsor will provide no more  than 50 per cent of total direct project costs

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission seeks proposals to publish documentary editions of historical records. Projects may focus on the papers of major figures from American history or cover broad historical movements in politics, military, business, social reform, the arts, and other aspects of the national experience. The historical value of the records and their expected usefulness to broad audiences must justify the costs of the project. 
otherfederal

Agency for International Development (USAID)
Department of State
National Institutes of Health
National Science Foundation
National Endowment for the Humanities
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For assistance, please contact:
Erin Hale
Senior Research Development Officer
erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu | 617-496-5252

To see previous Social Science Funding Newsletters, please visit our email archive.

Research Development | RAS | research.fas.harvard.edu