William T. Grant Scholars Program

Overview

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 researchers’ expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas.

Applicants should have a track record of conducting high-quality research and an interest in pursuing a significant shift in their trajectories as researchers. We recognize that early-career researchers are rarely given incentives or support to take measured risks in their work, so this award includes a mentoring component, as well as a supportive academic community.

Awards are based on applicants’ potential to become influential researchers, as well as their plans to expand their expertise in new and significant ways. The application should make a cohesive argument for how the applicant will expand his or her expertise. The research plan should evolve in conjunction with the development of new expertise, and the mentoring plan should describe how the proposed mentors will support applicants in acquiring that expertise. Proposed research plans must address questions that are relevant to policy and practice in the Foundation’s focus areas.

The Foundation supports research in two distinct focus areas: 1) Reducing inequality in youth outcomes, and 2) Improving the use of research evidence in decisions that affect young people.  Proposed research must address questions that align with one of these areas.

Focus Area: Reducing Inequality 
In this focus area, we support studies 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. 

Focus Area: Improving the Use of Research Evidence 
While an extensive body of knowledge provides a rich understanding of specific conditions that foster the use of research evidence, we lack robust, validated strategies for cultivating them. What is required to create structural and social conditions that support research use? What infrastructure is needed, and what will it look like? What supports and incentives  foster research use? And, ultimately, how do youth outcomes fare when research evidence is used? This is where new research can make a difference.

• Applicants must be nominated by their institutions. Major divisions of an institution (e.g., College of Arts and Sciences, Medical School) may nominate only one applicant each year.  In addition to the eligibility criteria below, deans and directors of those divisions should refer to the Selection Criteria to aid them in choosing their nominees. Applicants of any discipline are eligible.  The Internal Competition is available on InfoReady.
• Applicants must have received their terminal degree within seven years of submitting their application. We calculate this by adding seven to the year the doctoral degree was conferred. In medicine, the seven-year maximum is dated from the completion of the first residency. The month in which the degree was conferred or residency completed  does not matter for this calculation.
• Applicants must be employed in career-ladder positions. For many applicants, this means holding a tenure-track position in a university. Applicants in other types of organizations should be in positions in which there is a pathway to advancement in a research career at the organization and the organization is fiscally responsible for the applicant’s position. The award may not be used as a post-doctoral fellowship.

Each Scholar receives exactly $350,000 over five years, including up to 7.5% indirect costs. 
Awards begin July 1, 2024 and are made to the applicant’s institution. 

Mentor and Reference Letter Deadline: June 14, 2023, 3 PM EST 
Application Deadline: July 5, 2023, 3 PM EST

Watch the 2022 webinar, “William T. Grant Scholars: An Overview of the Program and How to Apply”