Social Data Research and Dissertation Fellowships

The Social Data Research Fellowship and the Social Data Dissertation Fellowship, new endeavors of the Social Science Research Council, with support from Omidyar Network, seek to encourage multifaceted pathways for the collection and analysis of social data, with the larger aim of cultivating robust research on technology and society. In particular, we are interested in supporting research that makes creative use of available social data to investigate how social media interact with democracy and elections. Expanding ethical scholarly access, use, and analysis of a range of social data is critical to understanding the complex ways that social media and other technologies impact political life and processes.

SSRC invites proposals from scholars in the social sciences and related fields for the Social Data Research Fellowship and the Social Data Dissertation Fellowship. These fellowships will support research projects that are focused on two key areas:

1. Advancing scholarly research on the role of social media in elections and democracy, with an emphasis on the 2020 US elections, including local, state, and/or national primary or general elections.

2. Expanding best practices and methods for accessing and analyzing relevant data that can inform our understanding of the impact of social media on democracy

COVID-19:
The worldwide Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly changed the policy, electoral, and media landscapes related to the 2020 US elections. This grant opportunity’s primary emphasis is related to social media and the 2020 elections, as described above; however applications that investigate the impact of the coronavirus pandemic as it intersects with the core themes outlined above are particularly encouraged. For example, explorations of policy debates, news, or disinformation circulated via social media on topics relevant to the 2020 US elections and amplified by circumstances related to Covid-19–such as vote-by-mail debates, health care policy, Covid-19 disinformation campaigns related to the election, and so on–are welcome.