William T. Grant Foundation: Research Grants to Reduce Inequality / Research Grants to Improve the Use of Research Evidence
Deadline: May 1, 2024
Category: Youth; Inequality,
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.
The foundation will accept their next round of research grant applications on March 5, 2024 (application portal opens) for the following two programs:
Research Grants on Reducing Inequality – $100,000 to $600,000
Research grants on reducing inequality fund research studies that aim 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.
The foundation welcomes descriptive studies that clarify mechanisms for reducing inequality or elucidate how or why a specific program, policy, or practice operates to reduce inequality. They also welcome intervention studies that examine attempts to reduce inequality. Finally, they welcome studies that improve the measurement of inequality in ways that can enhance the work of researchers, practitioners, or policymakers.
The foundation invites 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.
Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence – $100,000 to $1 Million
Research grants on improving the use of research evidence fund research studies that advance theory and build empirical knowledge on ways to improve the use of research evidence by policymakers, agency leaders, organizational managers, intermediaries, and other decision-makers that shape youth-serving systems in the United States.
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.
This program supports research on strategies focused on improving the use, usefulness, and impact of evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. WTG Foundation welcomes impact studies that test strategies for improving research use as well as whether improving research use leads to improved youth outcomes. They also welcome descriptive studies that reveal the strategies, mechanisms, or conditions for improving research use. Finally, they welcome measurement studies that explore how to construct and implement valid and reliable measures of research use.