Russel Sage Foundation

RSF/BMGF Pipeline Grants Competition

Application Deadline: Tuesday, October 22, 2024

The Pipeline Grants Competition seeks to support early- career scholars (Assistant Professors, Lecturers and Adjunct Assistant Professors) and promote diversity by prioritizing applications from scholars who are underrepresented in the social sciences and/or employed at under-resourced colleges and universities. This includes racial, ethnic, gender, disciplinary, institutional, and geographic diversity.

Funding & Eligibility
Only faculty who have not previously received a research grant or a visiting fellowship from RSF are eligible to apply. RSF expects to fund about 20 one-year projects by assistant professors, lecturers, and adjunct assistant professors. Proposals are due on October 22, 2024, for funding starting in Summer 2025. Individual applicants can apply for grants of up to $35,000; teams of two or more eligible applicants can apply for grants of up to $50,000. RSF will pair grantees with mentors conducting research on related issues and provide an honorarium for the mentors. On occasion, RSF will deem a project or applicant more appropriate for its Presidential Grants Competition and review a Pipeline Grants proposal as a letter of inquiry for that competition instead.

Research Conference
Grantees are expected to present their findings at a conference during Summer 2026 where other grantees, mentors, and other senior scholars will participate. The goal of the conference is to provide constructive feedback on the research ahead of publication and to foster collaboration among early career and senior scholars. RSF will reimburse participants for reasonable travel expenses to attend the conference.

Application Guidelines
Proposals are limited to seven single-spaced pages (12-point font) and should include a very brief literature review (no more than one page), and detailed information on the research question, hypotheses (where applicable), research methods and data, analytic plan, and project timeline. Also required are an abbreviated CV (5 pages maximum), and a brief description of the budgeted items. A detailed budget, budget justification, and a letter from your institution stating that it will act as the fiscal agent for the project will only be expected from those whose proposals are funded.

Applications must be submitted via the Foundation’s FLUXX portal. Click on “Apply for a Small Grant (for Emerging Scholars)” and select “Pipeline Grants Competition” as an Application Type. Learn more about RSF’s grant writing guidelines, example proposals, and an instructional video on applying to RSF through Fluxx here.

AREAS OF INTEREST
The primary goal of the Pipeline Grants Competition is to support innovative research on economic mobility and access to opportunity in the United States. We are also interested in research focused on structural barriers to educational attainment, economic mobility, political and civic engagement, and how individuals, communities and state entities understand, navigate and challenge systemic inequalities.

Below we provide some examples of topics and questions that are relevant to this competition. This list is not all-encompassing. Short descriptions of previously funded projects are available on our website.

Our priorities generally exclude research focused on health​ or mental health outcomes or health behaviors, ​as these are priorities for other funders. ​For the same reason, RSF seldom supports research focused on educational processes or curricular issues. It does prioritize analyses of the causes and consequences of inequities in student achievement or educational attainment.

RSF has a long-standing goal of encouraging methodological diversity and inter-disciplinary collaboration. We are interested in novel uses of new or under-utilized data, and creative uses of administrative data or new data linkages across systems (e.g., in and across criminal justice, safety net, labor markets). Applicants might propose exploratory fieldwork, a pilot study, field or survey experiments, in-depth qualitative interviews, ethnographies, and/or pilot or exploratory studies which support the development of a randomized evaluation (randomized controlled trial).

Applicants can also learn more about application requirements and the competition by participating in a webinar on October 1st at 2:00pm EST or can speak to a member of our program staff by emailing programs@rsage.org. Sign up for our mailing list to get updates and sign up for the webinar here (will be a link).

Income & Wealth

• How does family background (i.e., parental race, ethnicity, education, income levels, wealth accumulation, etc.) affect educational and economic outcomes of the next generation?
• What are the determinants and consequences of racial disparities in income and wealth?
• What is the relationship between wealth and political participation and civic engagement?
• How do different forms of debt (student loan debt, medical debt, credit card debt) affect income, wealth, and economic mobility?

Policy Impacts and Interventions

• What policies are most effective at reducing poverty and inequality and how do their effects vary by race, ethnicity, gender, geography, and social class?
• How might various policies, such as reparations, baby bonds, student debt forgiveness, address historical injustices and discrimination, and reduce  inequalities by race/ethnicity, gender, and social class?
• To what extent have eviction moratoria reduced housing instability and improved other social and economic outcomes? Does emergency financial assistance reduce eviction, and how can this kind of financial assistance be targeted to be most effective?
• Which public policies are most effective at reducing the use of alternative financial services like payday loans and pawn shops?

Neighborhood Characteristics, Gentrification and Segregation

• What are the legacies of redlining and exclusionary housing zoning ordinances for the opportunity and mobility of African Americans and other groups?
• To what extent has segregation shaped individuals' inter-group interactions and civic engagement?
• What are the causes and consequences of "white flight," or what interventions might address this barrier to integration?
• How has gentrification affected the opportunities and outcomes of those growing up in low-income neighborhoods?
• How do structural factors influence or limit housing or neighborhood choices for individuals and families from under-represented minorities?

Climate Change & Natural Disasters

• How do the effects of disasters like wildfires, floods, drought, hurricanes and their recoveries vary by race, ethnicity, gender, geography, and social class?
• What factors and experiences shape attitudes, rhetoric, and behaviors related to the natural environment and climate change?
• What are the immediate and long-term consequences of migration in response to climate change or extreme weather events?

Criminal Justice & the Legal System

• How do individuals' experiences of policing, courts, incarceration, or immigration detention affect their immediate and long-term opportunities in housing, employment, education, income?
• What factors shape people’s attitudes towards criminality and criminal justice? To what extent have recent criminal justice reforms impacted opportunities for mobility, and for whom?
• How do changes in public investments and the relative local and state budgets for police and public schools interact to influence both public safety and the opportunities and wellbeing of children, particularly those from high-poverty minority communities?
• What policies or practices are effective in addressing disparities in criminal justice outcomes, including bail or sentencing?

Young Adults of Color, Social Movements, and Democracy

• How do young people’s experiences with social movements, such as Black Lives Matter, the Dreamers, the Sunrise Movement, the MeToo movement, the movement for reproductive rights or with voluntary civic organizations influence their identities, educational and economic opportunities, and their civic and political engagement?
• What factors are associated with the participation and leadership of young people, especially young people of color, in collective action more generally, and political protests in response to systemic racism in particular?
• What are the long-term effects of movement participation on political and civic engagement over the lifecycle?

Accessing the Safety Net

• How has differential access to the social safety net, affordable housing, and legal assistance shaped socio-economic outcomes of members of socially marginalized groups?
• What barriers limit access and uptake of public benefits and how have they changed over time? How do access and uptake vary by race, ethnicity, gender, and region?

Labor Markets

• How do labor market intermediaries (e.g., job training programs, temporary employment agencies, or labor unions) affect economic mobility and opportunity?
• To what extent do labor market shocks generated by artificial intelligence, robotics, or automation affect labor market opportunities of lower-paid workers?
• To what extent have labor organizing strategies, by traditional unions or by new types of labor organizations, affected working conditions, wages and benefits, and/or promoted labor market opportunities and mobility?
• What are the underlying determinants of inequality in labor market outcomes (callbacks, hiring, retention, wages, etc.), and/or what policies or practices are effective in reducing inequality?
• How do structural factors influence or limit labor market choices for applicants or workers from under-represented minorities?

Immigrants, Immigration, and Immigrant Integration Policies

• To what extent have intensified apprehension and deportation programs affected the socio-economic outcomes of immigrant children, youth, and young adults? 
• How has immigration enforcement shaped individuals' civic and political engagement?
• Whether and to what extent does the hardening of the border and immigration enforcement affect participation in the safety net of those eligible for those benefits?
• What are the social, political, economic, or psychological consequences from the rise of nativism or xenophobia on the mobility of immigrants and ethnoracial minorities?

Education

• To what extent might institutional responses to shifting state and federal policies regarding race-conscious admissions promote diversity in college attendance and completion?
• How do student debt/student loans, or concerns about them, influence degree completion and career choices, particularly for first-generation students and under-represented minorities?
• How do structural factors influence or limit educational choices for students from under-represented minorities?
• What are the effects of the introduction of policies to restrict teaching on issues of race, gender, and sexuality on educational attainment?

Gender, Work and Public Policies

• Which policies may support women’s labor market participation and address the barriers that hold women back from obtaining employment, fair compensation, opportunities for advancements, and equitable treatment at work?
• How does the availability and affordability of child-care affect mobility?
• How do household formation, cohabitation, and marriage decisions shape the economic opportunities of children?
• How do gender norms affect schooling decisions, college major choices, or occupational decisions? How do policies shape gender norms in households?
• Applicants can apply for either the Pipeline Grants Competition or the October 29 deadline for LOIs for presidential and trustee grants, but not both.