OARS funding Economics

The Center for Retirement Research sponsors the annual Steven H. Sandell Grant Program for scholars in the field of retirement research and policy. The program is funded by the U.S. Social Security Administration to provide opportunities for scholars from all academic disciplines and senior scholars working in a new area to pursue cutting-edge projects on retirement income issues. Priority areas include: * Social Security * Macroeconomic analyses of Social Security * Wealth and retirement income * Program interactions * International research * Demographic research

Center will define the needs and develop strategies that can help seniors, especially women, and their families identify and prevent fraud or elder financial exploitation and enhance the potential for maintaining independence. In partnership with AoA, the Center will design and execute objectives to support the incorporation of the concepts of basic financial and retirement planning into the fabric of Older Americans Act Programs. Center activities will incorporate the latest technology to generate and disseminate knowledge in appropriately packaged forms that can assist women, especially low-income women, women of color, and women with limited English-speaking proficiency to build their capacity to plan for, and to exercise, the most prudent options for their economic security in later life. The Center will serve as a national clearinghouse of tools and information on retirement planning and related financial materials, such as consumer protection and fraud prevention. It will tailor its activities and work products to meet the special needs of disadvantaged women and their families, including limited English-speaking individuals. The award will be made in the form of a cooperative agreement because AoA will be substantially involved in the development and execution of the activities conducted by the Center.

The purpose of the Mentored Quantitative Research Career Development Award (K25) is to attract to NIH-relevant research those investigators whose quantitative science and engineering research has thus far not been focused primarily on questions of health and disease. The K25 award will provide support and protected time for a period of supervised study and research for productive professionals with quantitative (e.g., mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science, imaging science, informatics, physics, chemistry) and engineering backgrounds to integrate their expertise with NIH-relevant research. 

The goals of the Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Processes and Systems (RIPS) solicitation are (1) to foster an interdisciplinary research community that discovers new knowledge for the design and operation of infrastructures as processes and services  (2) to enhance the understanding and design of interdependent critical infrastructure systems (ICIs) and processes that provide essential goods and services despite disruptions and failures from any cause, natural, technological, or malicious, and (3) to create the knowledge for innovation in ICIs to advance society with new goods and services. The objectives of this solicitation are: Create theoretical frameworks and multidisciplinary computational models of interdependent infrastructure systems, processes and services, capable of analytical prediction of complex behaviors, in response to system and policy changes. Synthesize new approaches to increase resilience, interoperations, performance, and readiness in ICIs. Understand organizational, social, psychological, legal, political and economic obstacles to improving ICI's, and identifying strategies for overcoming those obstacles. The RIPS solicitation seeks proposals with transformative ideas that will ensure ICIs services are effective, efficient, dependable, adaptable, resilient, safe, and secure.  Successful proposals are expected to study multiple infrastructures focusing on them as interdependent systems that deliver services, enabling a new interdisciplinary paradigm in infrastructure research.  Proposals that do not broadly integrate across the cyber-physical, engineering and social, behavioral and economic (SBE) sciences may be returned without review. 

Section 16(h)(1)(F) of the Food and Nutrition Act of 2008 (the Act), as amended by the Agricultural Act of 2014 (P.L. 113-79), provides $200 million for the development, implementation, and evaluation of up to ten pilot projects designed to reduce dependency and increase work effort under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). These pilots allow USDA and State partners to test a number of existing and new employment and training (E&T) activities in order to increase the number of SNAP work registrants who obtain unsubsidized employment, increase earned income, and reduce reliance on public assistance.

Hazards SEES seeks research projects that will productively cross the boundaries of the atmospheric and geospace, earth, and ocean sciences; computer and information science (including cyberinfrastructure); engineering; mathematics and statistics; and social, economic, and behavioral sciences. Successful proposals will integrate across multiple disciplines to promote research that advances new paradigms that contribute to creating a society resilient to hazards.

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Uganda is seeking applications to fund one or more organizations through a five-year Cooperative Agreement to improve health, nutrition, education, and psychosocial wellbeing, and reduce abuse, exploitation and neglect among children and youth orphaned and made vulnerable by HIV (OVC) and other adversities in Uganda, and particularly in the Eastern and Northern Regions; as described in Section I of this RFA.

The Science and Technology Centers (STC): Integrative Partnerships program supports innovative, potentially transformative, complex research and education projects that require large-scale, long-term awards. STCs conduct world-class research through partnerships among academic institutions, national laboratories, industrial organizations, and/or other public/private entities, and via international collaborations, as appropriate. They provide a means to undertake significant investigations at the interfaces of disciplines and/or fresh approaches within disciplines. STCs may involve any area of science and engineering that NSF supports

This fall, OARS will host a series of brown-bag workshops on navigating the NSF proposal process.  Workshops will be held select Tuesdays from noon to 1:00pm in Pearson 208.  You are welcome to attend any or all of the sessions.  Click through for dates and registration information.

EDA is committed to helping foster connected, innovation-centric economic sectors which support commercialization and entrepreneurship as described in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. Working with regions across the country to develop regional innovation strategies, including regional innovation clusters, is also a Strategic Goal of the DOC's FY 2014-2018 Strategic Plan and a keystone of the Secretary's commitment to building globally competitive regions. As part of this strategy, funding is available for capacity-building activities that include Proof of Concept Centers and Commercialization Centers as well as scaling of existing commercialization programs and centers; feasibility studies for the creation and expansion of facilities such as science and research parks; and supporting opportunities to close the funding gap for early-stage companies. To that end, EDA's existing and highly successful i6 Challenge is being joined by additional grant opportunities to create the Regional Innovation Strategies (RIS) Program. Under this program, EDA is soliciting applications for three separate competitions: 1. 2014 i6 Challenge; 2. Science and Research Park Development Grants; and 3.Cluster Grants for Seed Capital Funds. Applicants may, but are not required to, submit proposals for more than one competition under the RIS Program.

Applicants may propose multiple studies. Funding through this cooperative agreement must only be used to fund impact evaluation design, implementation, analysis, and dissemination and must not be used to fund projects or interventions. Proposed impact evaluations must: 1) provide evidence that will be relevant to informing the design and effectiveness of a project or government policy that has direct or indirect effects on child labor or forced labor; 2) utilize partnerships between researchers, contractors, and/or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and local organizations in the country where the proposed impact evaluation will take place; 3) ensure that impact evaluation results will be available within the time-period of the cooperative agreement; 4) build the evidence base on child labor or forced labor in OCFT's intervention areas and/or outcomes of interest; 5) test interventions or combinations of interventions; 6) examine interventions that are relevant and promising; 7) ensure that study designs, surveys, and analysis conform to international and national definitions and standards on child labor and forced labor; and 8) use RCT designs.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of the P3-People, Prosperity and the Planet Award Program, is seeking applications proposing to research, develop, and design solutions to real world challenges involving the overall sustainability of human society. The P3 competition highlights the use of scientific principles in creating innovative projects focused on sustainability. The P3 Award program was developed to foster progress toward sustainability by achieving the mutual goals of improved quality of life, economic prosperity and protection of the planet -- people, prosperity, and the planet - the three pillars of sustainability. The EPA offers the P3 competition in order to respond to the technical needs of the world while moving towards the goal of sustainability. Please see the P3 website for more details about this program.

The Russell Sage Foundation, the principal American foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences, seeks applications for research projects that deepen our understanding of intergenerational mobility in the U.S. by using recently released statistics on mobility from the Equality of Opportunity Project.   Using Internal Revenue Service (IRS) administrative tax records on earnings for more than 40 million children and their parents, Chetty, Hendren, Kline, and Saez (2014) have made available new public use statistics on intergenerational mobility in the U.S. Applicants from all of the social sciences are encouraged to submit proposals utilizing this new data resource (possibly in combination with other data sources).

Indiana University's African Studies Program invites applications for a short-term residency to conduct research in IU's Libraries/African Studies Collections. Indiana University's African Studies Collection ranks among the top tier of such collections in the U.S. It comprises more than 150,000 volumes of monographs and over 700 serial subscriptions as well as materials in other formats (e.g. posters, slides, film/video, audio tapes, etc). The focus of the collection is on the humanities and social sciences, supporting a wide range of students and faculty in such departments as history, anthropology, fine arts, theatre & drama, literature, folklore, ethnomusicology, communication and culture, linguistics, religious studies, education, political science, business, economics, journalism, and applied health science. This residency is intended for faculty members at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or at other U.S. colleges / universities with limited Africa collections, to conduct research in Indiana University's libraries and special collections in support of curriculum development or publications. The successful applicant will receive an award that covers domestic travel, accommodations in Bloomington, and a modest per diem for up to two weeks of research. The award will cover expenses up to a maximum of $2,000 and must be used before August 01, 2014. The recipient is expected to reside in Bloomington during the period of her/his award.

The Association for Jewish Studies is pleased to announce the Berman Foundation Dissertation Fellowships in Support of Research in the Social Scientific Study of the Contemporary American Jewish Community. The Berman Fellowships - two awards of $16,000 each for the 2014-15 academic year -aim to support the development and expansion of the field of the social scientific study of Jewish Americans and the contemporary Jewish-American experience; enhance funding opportunities for up-and-coming scholars in the midst of institutional cutbacks in higher education; and encourage graduate students in sociology, social psychology, social anthropology, demography, social work, economics, and political science to expand their research to include the study of North American Jewry. Fellowships will be awarded for one academic year, with the possibility of renewal for a second year. Preference will be given to applicants seeking support for doctoral research, but requests for funding to support the writing phase of the dissertation will also be considered. Support for this project is generously provided by the Mandell L. and Madeleine H. Berman Foundation.

The Russell Sage Foundation's program on the Future of Work supports research on the causes and consequences of changes in the quality of jobs for less- and moderately-skilled workers in the United States. We seek research proposals that will broaden our understanding of the role of changes in employer practices, the nature of the labor market and public policies on the employment, earnings, and the quality of jobs of American workers. We are especially interested in funding analyses of original qualitative and quantitative data sources, and novel uses of existing sources of data to address important questions about the interplay of market and non-market forces in shaping the wellbeing of workers, today and in the future.

One of the oldest foundations in the United States, the Russell Sage Foundation was established by  Margaret Olivia Sage in 1907 for "the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States." In pursuit of that mission, the foundation now dedicates itself to strengthening the methods, data, knowledge, and theoretical core of the social sciences as a means of diagnosing social problems and improving social policies. The foundation's program on Social Inequality supports research on the social, economic, political, and labor market consequences of rising economic inequality in the United States. The program seeks Letters of Inquiry for investigator-initiated research projects that will broaden  understanding of the causes and consequences of rising economic inequalities. Priority will be given to projects that use innovative data or methodologies to address important questions related to inequality.

We are pleased to announce that the new OARS website is up and running (although the new Research Compliance and Undergraduate Research sections are still in development).   If you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, we hope you will soon.  Once you've visited, we'd be grateful if you'd give us five minutes of your time to let us know how we're doing by completing a brief eight-question survey at https://miamioh.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_erhRsEFwwWVP6m1 Finally, don't forget to update any bookmarks you may have to material on our old website!

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is intended to stimulate model-driven research to understand the ways that people make decisions about engaging in behaviors that impact the risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV, or to adhere to treatments for HIV. Decision making processes may contribute to both substance use/abuse and other HIV acquisition or transmission risks. A better understanding of decision making processes in the context of brain neural networks and their associated functions would lead to the development of better strategies to reduce the frequency of HIV-risk behaviors. Therefore, this FOA encourages applications to study 1) cognitive, motivational or emotional mechanisms and/or 2) brain neuroendocrine and reinforcement systems that related to HIV-risk behaviors or treatment non-compliance. Interdisciplinary studies that incorporate approaches from psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, decision sciences, neuroscience and computational modeling are encouraged. This FOA for R03 applications encourages small research projects that can be carried out in a short period of time with limited resources. The R03 activity code supports different types of projects including pilot and feasibility studies; secondary analysis of existing data; small, self-contained research projects; development of research methodology; and development of new research technology. In no cases, should research involving animals be proposed.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is intended to stimulate model-driven research to understand the ways that people make decisions about engaging in behaviors that impact the risk of acquiring or transmitting HIV, or to adhere to treatments for HIV. Decision making processes may contribute to both substance use/abuse and other HIV acquisition or transmission risks. A better understanding of decision making processes in the context of brain neural networks and their associated functions would lead to the development of better strategies to reduce the frequency of HIV-risk behaviors. Therefore, this FOA encourages applications to study 1) cognitive, motivational or emotional mechanisms and/or 2) brain neuroendocrine and reinforcement systems that related to HIV-risk behaviors or treatment non-compliance. Interdisciplinary studies that incorporate approaches from psychology, economics, anthropology, sociology, decision sciences, neuroscience and computational modeling are encouraged. This FOA for R21 applications is intended to encourage exploratory and developmental research projects by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of these projects. These studies may involve considerable risk but may lead to a breakthrough in a particular area, or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methodologies, models, or applications that could have a major impact.