Past Research Priorities
New proposals are no longer being accepted in the following grant programs and initiatives. Note that the Cultural Contact and Immigration programs have been replaced by Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration and the Behavioral Economics and Decision Making and Human Behavior in Context programs have been replaced by Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context.
Behavioral Economics
This completed program supported research that used insights and methods from psychology, economics, sociology, political science and other social sciences to examine and improve social and living conditions in the United States.
Non-Standard Work
This completed special initiative supported innovative social science research on the causes and consequences of the increased incidence of alternative work arrangements in the United States.
Decision Making and Human Behavior in Context
This completed special initiative supported innovative research on decision making across the social sciences that examines causes, consequences, processes, or context from a behavioral or alternative perspective.
The Social, Economic and Political Effects of the Affordable Care Act
This completed special initiative supported innovative social science research on the social, economic and political effects of the Affordable Care Act.
1990 Census
This completed special initiative utilized data from the 1990 census to examine major social and economic issues facing American society.
Biology and Social Science (BIOSS) Working Group
This completed working group examined how the incorporation of biological concepts, processes and measures in social science research might improve our understanding of a range of social and economic outcomes.
Computational Science Working Group
This completed working group examined how “big data” can expand our understanding of social issues and improve research methods in the social sciences.
Integrating Biology and Social Science Knowledge
This completed special initiative supported social science research that furthered our understanding of how environmental factors influence a range of health and socioeconomic behaviors and outcomes over the life course.
Integrating Biology and Social Science (BIOSS)
This completed special initiative supported innovative social science research that explored how biological mechanisms interact with the environment to influence individuals’ social and economic outcomes.
2000 Census
This completed special initiative produced a series of brief Bulletins on the state of the nation as revealed by the 2000 census.
Computational Social Science
This completed special initiative supported innovative social science research that brings new data (e.g. public and private administrative databases) and methods (e.g. machine learning) to bear on questions of interest in RSF’s core programs.
Cultural Contact & Immigration Working Group
This completed working group examined immigrant life outside of customary gateway cities such as New York, Miami, or Los Angeles, with an emphasis on the cultural frictions resulting from the rapid growth of the foreign-born population in the US.
Cultural Contact
This completed program was concerned with understanding and improving relations between racial and ethnic groups in schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, and other key institutional settings.
Behavioral Economics Small Grants
RSF offered small grants to doctoral students at the dissertation stage and recent Ph.D. recipients to support innovative, high-quality research and to encourage young investigators to enter these developing interdisciplinary fields.
Immigration
This completed program looked beyond the immediate costs and benefits of immigration to the United States to examine how well immigrants and their children are adapting socially, politically, and economically.
Racial Bias in Policing Working Group
This completed working group examined the impact of racial, ethnic, and gender-based attitudes on law enforcement.
Literacy Project
This completed special initiative focused on applying findings from basic cognitive science to educational practice that would foster the ability of students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, to read, write, and reason effectively.
Multi-Study of Urban Inequality
This completed special initiative was aimed at finding out why high rates of joblessness have persisted among minorities living in America's central cities.
September 11 Initiative
To contribute in its own limited way to the nation's effort to respond to the challenges posed by the September 11 attacks, the Russell Sage Foundation devised several new initiatives designed to enlist the data and insights of social science in helping the country understand the implications of September 11 for our city and our national civic life.
Social Inequality and Educational Disadvantage
This completed special initiative focused on the impact of neighborhoods, families, and labor markets—the environment around the school—on schooling outcomes.
The Politics of Social Policy
This completed working group of political scientists explored what they perceived as growing citizen disenchantment with the nation's political system.
The Social and Economic Effects of the Great Recession
This completed special initiative assessed the effects of the Great Recession on the economic, political, and social life of the country.
Trust
This completed special initiative explored the social role of trust.
U.S. 2010
This completed special initiative reported on key social and economic trends between 2000 and 2010.
Reaching for a New Deal
This completed working group to tracked the course and fate of Obama's efforts to reorient domestic policy during 2009 and 2010.
The Political Influence of Economic Elites
This completed working group examined the mechanisms through which economic elites influence politics, and the relationship between money, politics, and inequality.
Computational Social Science
This completed working group was tasked with guiding RSF’s Computational Social Science (CSS) special initiative and determining how RSF might support the most promising paths forward in developing a CSS research agenda in the social sciences.
Improving Education and Reducing Inequality in the United States
This completed special initiative sought research projects that deepened our understanding of educational opportunity and success in the United States by analyzing data on academic achievement from the Stanford Education Data Archive.
