Funding Priorities
RSF funds social science research that extends the methods, data, and theories of the social sciences as a means of better documenting and understanding the nation’s most pressing social, political, and economic problems. Below you will find current funding priorities under our programs and special initiatives.
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RSF accept letters of inquiry (LOIs) under its core programs and special initiatives on a rotating basis: Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context; Future of Work; Immigration and Immigrant Integration; Race, Ethnicity and Immigration; Social, Political, and Economic Inequality; Promoting Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility among Racially, Ethnically, and Economically Diverse Groups after the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities.
RSF rarely considers projects for which the investigators have not already fully-developed the research design, the sample framework, access to data, etc. Investigators are encouraged to submit an LOI after they have developed and pre-tested survey instruments, completed preliminary data analyses if the data are publically-available or conducted some preliminary interviews for qualitative studies.
Our priorities do not include analyses of health or mental health outcomes or health behaviors as these are priorities for other funders. For the same reason, RSF seldom supports studies focused on educational processes or curricular issues but does prioritize analyses of inequities in student achievement or educational attainment.