Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) Dissertation Research Grants
The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) has established a dissertation research grants (DRG) program to support innovative and high-quality dissertation research projects that address questions relevant to RSF’s priority areas: Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context; Future of Work; Race, Ethnicity and Immigration; Immigration and Immigrant Integration; and Social, Political, and Economic Inequality. Proposed projects must be closely aligned with the funding priorities listed on the RSF website for any of these areas, contribute to RSF’s mission to improve social and living conditions in the U.S., and demonstrate appropriate use of relevant theory, innovative data, rigorous research methods, and measures.
one year
Upper: $10,000USD
The maximum allowable budget is $10,000 for a one-year grant. RSF does not allow indirect costs on Dissertation Research Grants. Representative categories of expenditure that should be described in detail in the budget narrative include:
- Applicant stipend up to $5,000
- Research assistance
- Study participant incentives
- Data acquisition, such as data access fees, purchase of data sets, funding of surveys or in-person data collection costs
- Transcription costs
- Laboratory costs
- Travel (for data collection or data access only).
- Conference travel when the applicant is presenting a paper or poster will be considered on a case-by-case basis if the applicant certifies that such funding is not available from the home institution or other sources.
- Other research expenses will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
RSF expects to approve up to 25 grants.
Applicants must be enrolled doctoral students at an institution of higher education in the U.S. or a U.S. territory, who have completed all program requirements except the dissertation. To receive funding, an applicant whose proposal is selected for a grant must have their dissertation supervisor document that the dissertation research (a) is the same research that was described in the DRG proposal and (b) has been approved by the dissertation committee. In cases where a dissertation consists of several related papers, the proposal should focus on the most important paper. These grants will support all aspects of dissertation research (data collection, data preparation, data analysis and writing), but are not intended for students who have completed data collection and analysis and propose to spend the entire grant period writing the dissertation.
There is a lifetime limit of one dissertation research grant per applicant. RSF encourages applications from scholars who are traditionally underrepresented in the social sciences and its applicant pool, as we seek to promote diversity broadly, including (but not limited to), racial, ethnic, gender or sexual identity or orientation, first generation, disciplinary, institutional, and geographic. Priority will be given to doctoral students who are underrepresented in the social sciences and those lacking the resources to carry out the proposed research.
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