ISPS Research Funding

What You Need to Know

ISPS encourages early career faculty and researchers to apply for this funding. Although we will give full consideration to proposals from faculty at all career stages.

The grant is designed to cover a one or two-year project, with an expectation that at least one publication-quality research report will emerge within three years.

ISPS has two RFP cycles per academic year unless otherwise publicized. ISPS will consider off-cycle proposals that have a pressing urgency with regard to availability of or access to data, facilities, or specialized equipment. Including quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and similar unanticipated events (similar to the criteria for NSF RAPID grants).

Eligibility

Applicants must be full-time Yale faculty, postdoctoral fellows or affiliates, or doctoral students enrolled in a graduate degree program in the Yale Graduate School or a Yale professional school. We especially encourage proposals from ISPS-affiliated faculty and researchers.

Postdoctoral students must provide a letter of support for their proposal from a faculty advisor. Predoctoral fellows are not eligible. 

Applicants must indicate whether they received previous support for research from ISPS via the ISPS RFP process.

U.S. citizenship is not required.

Eligible Activities

ISPS supports direct research costs only. These costs are associated with data purchase, collection, and processing. And typically include subject recruitment, survey administration, and specialized research equipment. Travel to specific locations to collect data may be considered in some cases. Faculty and postdoctoral fellows may include the cost of skilled research assistance.

Cost associated with travel for conferences, article processing charges and other publication fees, and office or general computer equipment are not eligible. ISPS will not cover costs associated with faculty salary or institutional overhead.

Award Amount

The typical award is between $10,000 and $15,000, and the maximum award varies by ISPS funding initiative. For students, awards typically range between $3,000 and $5,000, with a maximum of $10,000. The award covers direct cost only (see eligible activities above). Smaller pilot projects are welcome.

For projects that qualify for funding from other Yale institutions, applicants must show evidence of an attempt to share the expense with these other sources. Applicants from the professional schools should show that they have applied and failed to receive support for their project from these sources before they apply for ISPS funding. If your project has funding from external sources, please register with Yale’s Office of Sponsored Projects.

Yale graduate students, please consult this list of selected sources of research funding at Yale:

• The Leitner Program
• The MacMillan Center
• The Jackson School of Global Affairs
• Yale Student Grants Database

For other information, visit Student Grants & Fellowships.

Project Period

Grants are typically designed to cover a one or two-year project, with an expectation that at least one publication-quality research report will emerge within three years.

Funded projects must be completed within two years of the award date, at which time any unused funds must be returned to ISPS. Awardees may request a no-cost extension for up to one additional year.

All funds awarded must be expended prior to the awardee leaving Yale University.

Application Information

Each proposal will be reviewed based on the soundness of the research design and the importance and innovativeness of the study given the size of the budget request. Pilot projects and projects with potential to evolve into larger collaborative studies are especially welcome.

If an award is granted, some further steps, including a data archiving plan and IRB approval, must be completed before any funds are released. Further details on the project proposal and other requirements are provided on the ISPS website. For questions about the application process please email ISPS Associate Director for Research & Strategic Initiatives, Limor Peer.

Proposal Elements

• Name, title, Yale affiliation
• (If a graduate student or postdoctoral fellow or associate: A letter of support for this proposal from a Yale faculty member)
• Project title
• Proposal packet (uploaded as a single PDF file): Required elements include a description of the research question, research design, data analysis strategy, project timetable, and a CV. Postdoctoral fellows and associates and students must also include in a brief statement from their faculty sponsor in support of the proposal (two to three sentences; copy of an email is acceptable). The packet should be up to three pages (not including the CV).
• Additional information as applicable: IRB status (e.g., approved, in progress); other sources and amount of funding for this project; expected outputs and positive impacts of the project; brief description of the strategy for measuring results, evaluation, and demonstration; and additional relevant information.
• Funds requested: amount in U.S. dollars.
• Budget justification: A detailed account that gives the review committee a clear idea of what the funds will support and includes sources for cost estimates for each budget item.
• Fund applied to and how the proposal meets the RFP objective.
• Account of previous funding support for research from ISPS via the ISPS RFP process.

ISPS Procedures

Yale faculty, postdocs, students, and staff must adhere to university policies and all Federal and State laws.

Please review the following Yale policies:

• Yale Research Data and Materials
• Yale Data Classification Policy
• Yale Travel on University Business Policy
• Yale Student Employment Policy
• Any other relevant University Policies & Procedures

Please address any questions to Limor Peer.

Before Funds are Released

You will be asked to provide the following documents:

• Data Management Plan. Information about how data will be collected, stored, secured, analyzed, disseminated, and preserved over the lifecycle of a research project (up to one page). Members of the Yale community can use our template to create a data management plan.
• Open Research Plan. Information about how the researcher plans to make all outputs of the research as open and accessible as possible. Includes pre-registration, data and code sharing and archiving, reproducibility checks (up to one page). Members of the Yale community can use our template to create an open research plan.
• Human Subjects Research. A copy of the approved request to the Human Subjects Committee, upon receipt, if human subjects will be used. We also urge researchers to consult the ethics statements of their respective disciplines. Yale University policy requires that certain types of research projects involving human subjects be reviewed by an Institutional Review Board prior to the start of the study to ensure that the project meets university policy and any other applicable regulations. If your project will require an IRB, you must receive approval before engaging in the research and provide it to Christina Butler, ISPS operations manager, before drawing down funds from your award. To see if your project needs to be reviewed, for advice on working with human subjects, and for more information about the IRB process and requirements, consult the Yale University Human Research Protection Program.

At the Start of the Project

Upon receipt of ISPS research funding, ISPS requires the following:

• ISPS account. Contact the ISPS business office to set up an account for your research project.
• Contracts. Yale faculty and students may not personally sign a contract to be paid with university funds. Contracts for the purchase of goods or services from an outside vendor must be signed by an authorized Yale purchasing agent before the work begins. All other agreements with third parties involving research conducted at Yale (such as a data use agreement, statement of work, or a confidentiality agreement) consult the university’s contracts information. Contracts must be reviewed and signed by the appropriate authorized Yale agent before the work begins to ensure it is in accordance with ISPS requirements, Yale policies, and federal, state, and local laws. For all research, regardless of funding source, we recommend using the Office of General Counsel’s Signature Authority Tool to determine who has authority to review and sign an agreement (login required).
• Purchasing. All ISPS researchers must consult university policies and standard purchasing methods to ensure compliance with all federal and state laws. Please consult the business office before entering into any contract or agreement with vendors or collaborators (see above). The business office will obtain goods and services through proper university channels, usually through a purchase requisition process.

Upon Completion of the Project

Upon completion of the research, ISPS requests:

• Data Archiving. PIs are required to provide to ISPS:
  • A complete final data set (will be kept in a secure, proprietary data archive unless the data can be publicly shared)
  • Cleaning and analysis code
  • Supplementary materials (such as codebook and printed treatment materials)

ISPS is committed to making research as FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) as possible. ISPS-funded projects will include a statement describing plans to archive data and code or a brief statement explaining why sharing or archiving the data is not possible. The ISPS Data Archive is a repository for digital files associated with scholarly studies conducted by ISPS-affiliated researchers, including data, code, and associated materials underlying the published results. ISPS helps you fulfill open data requirement and provides pre-publication data curation and code review services.

• Research report. PIs are requested to provide a brief report to the ISPS director regarding research progress, outcomes, and disposition of the awarded funds. PIs are also expected to work with ISPS communication director to disseminate the research.
• Acknowledging ISPS. Please acknowledge ISPS with the following language when publicizing or presenting your research results: “This research was supported by a grant from the Institution for Social and Policy Studies at Yale University.”

**Updated July 8, 2026**