Research Priorities

RSF supports high-quality innovative research under four core research priorities: Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context; Future of Work; Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration; and Social, Political, and Economic Inequality. In addition, it supports research under the following time-limited co-funded research priorities: Immigration and Immigrant Integration; Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility; and Causal Research on the Criminal Justice System.

RSF is launching a new competition, the Margaret Olivia Sage (MOS) Grants, to support research by multi- or inter-disciplinary teams on major social, economic, and political challenges with generational consequences for social and living conditions in the United States. Such challenges are typically national in scope, involve both systemic and individual factors, and the questions they raise are as urgent for policymakers and communities as they are for researchers.

RSF’s Core Research Grants, Sheldon Danziger Pipeline Grants, and Dissertation Research Grants, Visiting Scholar and Visiting Researcher programs consider investigator-initiated projects across all RSF research priorities. The Causal Research on the Criminal Justice System Grants only support causal research on the criminal justice system.

RSF seeks to cultivate a pipeline of researchers in early stages of their careers conducting research aligned with RSF’s research priorities through its early career grants: Sheldon Danziger Pipeline Grants; Dissertation Research Grants; and Causal Research on the Criminal Justice System Grants.