Russel Sage Foundation

All applications and reports must be submitted through the portal: https://rsf.fluxx.io/. Please create new accounts at least one week before the deadline as they need to be approved manually; registrations are only processed during RSF business hours (9am-5pm EST).

Upcoming Deadlines | Current Funding Priorities | RSF Application Portal

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Research Grants | Fellowships | RSF Journal | Summer Institutes | Dissertation Research Grants | Pipeline Grants Competition | What We Do Not Fund

Research Grants

RSF makes external grants for social science research projects that address questions of interest under our programs and special initiatives. We provide support primarily for analyzing data and writing up results, and particularly welcome innovative projects that collect or analyze new data to illuminate issues that are highly relevant to the foundation's funding priorities. We also encourage projects that are interdisciplinary and combine both quantitative and qualitative research. RSF rarely considers projects for which the investigators have not already fully-developed the research design, the sample framework, access to data, etc.

• Read more and apply
• WEBINAR: What Investigators Should Know about Grant Seeking from Private Foundations

Fellowships

RSF offers three types of fellowships: Visiting Scholars, Visiting Journalists, and Visiting Researchers. These fellowships provide a unique opportunity for select scholars and journalists in the social, economic and behavioral sciences to pursue their research and writing while in residence at the foundation in New York City. Research carried out by visiting fellows constitutes an important part of the foundation’s ongoing effort to analyze and understand the complex and shifting nature of social and economic life in the United States.

• Read more and apply: Visiting Scholar | Visiting Journalist | Visiting Researcher

RSF Journal

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is a peer-reviewed, open-access journal of original empirical research by both established and emerging scholars. It is designed to promote cross-disciplinary collaborations on timely topical issues of interest to academics, policymakers, and the public at large. Each issue is thematic in nature and focuses on a specific research question or area of interest. The introduction to each issue will begin with an accessible, broad and synthetic overview of the research question under consideration and the current thinking from various fields.

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Summer Institutes

RSF offers intensive, one-to-two-week summer institutes on various topics for doctoral students and early-career scholars. Most participant costs during the institute, including housing and most meals, are covered, and travel expenses are reimbursed up to a set cap. The programs accept about thirty participants. 

• Read more and apply

Dissertation Research Grants

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.

• Read more and apply

Pipeline Grants Competition

Launched in collaboration with the Economic Mobility and Opportunity program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, this competition seeks to promote diversity in the social sciences broadly, including racial, ethnic, gender, disciplinary, institutional, and geographic diversity. Early and mid-career faculty who have not previously received support from RSF in the form of a Trustee or Presidential research grant or a visiting fellowship from RSF are eligible to apply.

• Read more and apply

What We Do Not Fund

• RSF funds only social science research that seeks to "improve social and living conditions in the US." As such, we do not fund research based in other countries. The foundation may occasionally consider cross-national research that has clear implications for the US. However, all nationalities are eligible to apply and applicants do not have to reside in the U.S.
• As an operating foundation carrying out our own programs of social science research, we are in a position to publish only those books related to our core research programs.
• We do not award scholarships or other types of grants for support of college funding.
• One of the foundation’s most successful endeavors over time has been our Visiting Scholars Program—as a result, we do not fund residential fellowships elsewhere.
• As a general rule, we do not provide support for the development or maintenance of websites.
• We do not make general support grants to other institutions. Only specific project grants that further our declared program goals are permitted.

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.