Skip to Navigation

How to Apply

Project Awards

What We Support
The Foundation's awards are restricted to support for basic social science research within our announced programs. Our website, biennial reports, and other publications provide descriptions of each of these programs and examples of the research we have supported in the past. Our major awards range between $35,000 and $500,000. We mainly provide support for analyzing data and writing up results, but we occasionally consider larger awards for data acquisition projects highly relevant to the Foundation's program goals.

Application Process
Applications for external awards should be preceded by a brief letter of inquiry to determine whether the Foundation's present interests and funds permit consideration of a proposal for research. Letters of inquiry concerning research projects should summarize the project's objectives, the work plan, the qualifications of persons engaged in the research, and an estimated budget.

Proposals approved by staff are ordinarily submitted to outside peer review, either by a standing advisory committee for the program to which the proposal is submitted, or by ad hoc reviewers, or both. The Foundation's Trustees make all final funding decisions based on both the proposal and outside reviews.

Deadlines
All major proposals must be approved by the Foundation's Board of Trustees, which meets to consider proposals only in June and November. Unless otherwise specified in the request for proposals in a particular research competition, the deadline for submissions to the November funding round is mid-August, and to the June round is mid-March.

Click here for detailed information about preparing and submitting a proposal.

Visiting Scholars Program

Details
The Russell Sage Foundation annually awards up to 19 residential fellowships to selected scholars in the social sciences, who are at least several years beyond the Ph.D. The award allows these Visiting Scholars to pursue their research and writing at the Foundation for periods of up to 10 months. Visiting Scholar positions begin September 1 and ordinarily run through June 30th. Each scholar is provided with an office at the Foundation, research assistance, computer and library facilities, salary support for the academic year of up to $110,000 when unavailable from other sources and, for scholars outside the greater New York City area, a subsidized apartment nearby the Foundation offices.

Application Process and Deadlines
Application to the program can be made by completing a brief questionnaire and writing a four-to-five page letter describing the project to be undertaken while in residence at the Foundation. An up-to-date CV should accompany the letter, but papers and recommendations should not be included. All applications are reviewed by outside experts selected by the Foundation and final decisions are made by a sub-committee of the Russell Sage Board of Trustees. The deadline for applications is September 30th of the year prior to the desired year of residence. Decisions are ordinarily announced in March. Acceptances cannot be deferred to subsequent years.

Small Grants Program in Behavioral Economics

Details
The Russell Sage Behavioral Economics Roundtable supports a small grants research program to support high quality research in behavioral economics and to encourage young investigators to enter this developing field. There are no limitations on the disciplinary background of the principal investigator, and the proposed research may address any economic topic. Interdisciplinary efforts are welcome. Appropriate projects will demonstrate explicit use of psychological concepts in the motivation of the design and the preparation of the results. This program will be administered under the auspices of the Behavioral Economics Roundtable, a group of researchers in behavioral economics formed by the Russell Sage Foundation to encourage inter-disciplinary research in behavioral economics.

Application Process
Proposals should be submitted to the Small Grants Program in Behavioral Economics, attn: Kelly Westphalen, Russell Sage Foundation, 112 East 64th Street, New York, NY 10065. Please note that there is no deadline for the Small Grants Program in Behavioral Economics; applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

The maximum length for the text of a proposal is 1,000 words, excluding budget and bibliography. Proposals should outline briefly the basic rationale of the research, the question under study and the methods and analytic approach to be employed.

Click here for detailed information about preparing and submitting a proposal.

Summer Institute in Behavioral Economics

Details
From July 1 to July 13, 2012, the Russell Sage Foundation will sponsor the tenth Summer Institute in Behavioral Economics, to be held in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. The purpose of this workshop is to introduce graduate students and beginning faculty in economics and related disciplines to the findings and methods of behavioral economics. The workshop will include topics on psychological foundations such as decision-making under risk and uncertainty, intertemporal choice, biases in judgment, mental accounting, and social preferences, as well as the implications of these foundations for savings behavior, labor markets, development economics, finance, public policy, and topics in economics.

Eligibility
Participation is restricted to Ph.D. students who by July 2012 will have completed at least one year of their graduate program or to faculty who have completed their Ph.D. program since April 2011.

Candidates in related disciplines (e.g. psychology, business, political science and law) who have a strong interest and advanced training in formal economics are also eligible. The deadline for applications is March 9, 2012.

Click here for detailed information about application and eligibility requirements.

What We Do Not Fund

The Russell Sage Foundation is an operating foundation dedicated to programs of basic social science research in five program areas: research on the future of work, principally concerned with changes in the quality of low-wage work in advanced economies; research on current U.S. immigration that focuses on how well immigrants adapt to life in American society; research on cultural contact and improving relations between racial and ethnic groups; research that examines the social effects of rising economic inequality, and research on behavioral economics that incorporates insights of psychology into the study of economic behavior. Our limited budget makes it necessary for us to confine our grants to projects that fall within these announced areas of interest.

Our guidelines restrict us from giving grants for pre-doctoral study or research. We do not award scholarships or other types of grants for support of college funding.

We do not fund residential fellowships elsewhere. (See information about the Russell Sage Foundation Visiting Scholar Program.)

We are enjoined by IRS code from making general support grants to other institutions. Only specific project grants that further our declared program goals are permitted.

As an operating foundation carrying out our own programs of basic social science research, we are in a position to publish only those books deriving from the research that we support.


The Russell Sage Foundation seeks to promote diversity through all of its program activity. The Foundation does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, gender and/or gender identity, pregnancy or parental status, marital or domestic partner status, national origin, ancestry, age, sexual orientation, disability or medical condition, veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.