Research Priorities

The foundation currently supports four core programs: Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context; Future of Work; Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration; and Social, Political, and Economic Inequality. 

In addition, RSF currently sponsors two special initiatives: Immigration and Immigrant Integration and Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility.

RSF’s Pipeline Grants Competition, funded in collaboration with the Economic Mobility and Opportunity Program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, seeks to promote diversity in the social sciences broadly, including racial, ethnic, gender, disciplinary, institutional, and geographic diversity.

RSF, in collaboration with the Criminal Justice program at Arnold Ventures, launched an annual grants competition for early-career scholars, Causal Research on the Criminal Justice System (CRCJ) to cultivate a pipeline of researchers conducting causal research on the criminal justice system.

RSF's Dissertation Research Grants program supports innovative and high-quality dissertation research projects that address questions relevant to RSF’s priority areas.