Research Grants on Reducing Inequality

Overview

The William T. Grant Foundation invests in high-quality research focused on reducing inequality in youth outcomes and improving the use of research evidence in decisions that affect young people in the United States.

This program supports 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. We prioritize studies that aim to reduce inequalities that exist along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins.

Background 
Our focus on reducing inequality grew out of our view that research can do more than help us understand the problem of inequality—it can generate effective responses. We believe that it is time to build stronger bodies of knowledge on how to reduce inequality in the United States and to move beyond the mounting research evidence about the scope, causes, and consequences of inequality. 

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

We invite studies from a range of disciplines, fields, and methods, and we encourage investigations into various youth-serving systems, including justice, housing, child welfare, mental health, and education.

Applications for research grants on reducing inequality must: 

1. 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.
2. Make a convincing case for the dimension(s) of inequality the study will address.
3. 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.

• While we value research on the causes and consequences of inequality, we do not fund this work. Instead, we support research that informs or examines a policy, program, or practice response that can be implemented through an organization, institution, or system.
• We 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.

Major research grants
$100,000 to $600,000 over 2-3 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
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
$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.