Financial Education grants (broad scope)

The National Endowment for Financial Education, a nonprofit, national foundation wholly dedicated to improving the financial well-being of all Americans, has announced guidelines for its 2011 grant program.

The NEFE grants program seeks to fund innovative research and research-based development projects that can make a profound contribution to the field of financial literacy. Inquiries are encouraged from disciplines in fields as diverse as behavior, economics, neuroscience, sociology, psychology, marketing, finance, education, change theory, decision sciences, and others.

Of particular interest are pro-active research projects whose findings may cultivate critical thinking in the financial literacy community. Also of interest are development projects that put research recommendations into action. Project outcomes must be capable of achieving traction and measurable impact with audiences such as financial education intermediaries, researchers, practitioners, decision makers, and others who can achieve effective outreach to a target population with an unmet financial literacy need or to the general public.

Amount: Varies

Date due: June 7, 2011

For more information, click here.

Financial Education grants

The National Endowment for Financial Education, a nonprofit, national foundation wholly dedicated to improving the financial well-being of all Americans, has announced guidelines for its 2011 grant program.

The NEFE grants program seeks to fund innovative research and research-based development projects that can make a profound contribution to the field of financial literacy. Inquiries are encouraged from disciplines in fields as diverse as behavior, economics, neuroscience, sociology, psychology, marketing, finance, education, change theory, decision sciences, and others.

Of particular interest are pro-active research projects whose findings may cultivate critical thinking in the financial literacy community. Also of interest are development projects that put research recommendations into action. Project outcomes must be capable of achieving traction and measurable impact with audiences such as financial education intermediaries, researchers, practitioners, decision makers, and others who can achieve effective outreach to a target population with an unmet financial literacy need or to the general public.

Amount: Varies

Date due: June 7, 2011

For more information, click here.

Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)

The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program stimulates technological innovation in the private sector by strengthening the role of small business concerns in meeting Federal research and development needs, increasing the commercial application of federally supported research results, and fostering and encouraging participation by socially and economically disadvantaged and women-owned small businesses.The SBIR program solicits proposals from the small business sector consistent with NSF's mission. The program is governed by Public Law 112-1. A main purpose of the legislation is to stimulate technological innovation and increase private sector commercialization. The NSF SBIR program is therefore in a unique position to meet both the goals of NSF and the purpose of the SBIR legislation by transforming scientific discovery into both social and economic benefit, and by emphasizing private sector commercialization. Accordingly, NSF has formulated broad solicitation topics for SBIR that conform to the high-technology investment sector's interests.The four broad topics are: Biological and Chemical Technologies (BC); Education Applications (EA); Electronics, Information and Communication Technologies (EI); Nanotechnology, Advanced Materials, and Manufacturing (NM).

Amount: Varies

Date due: June 10, 2011

For more information, click here.

Economics of Retirement

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages research on the economic and health-related factors that influence older persons’ choices on labor force participation as they near typical retirement age and throughout the later stages of life. The interaction of health, work, family status, and economic wellbeing is enormously complex, and the direction of causal effects among those factors is often unclear. Because of those complexities, the FOA especially encourages innovative approaches to (1) modeling the dynamic processes underlying labor force decisions over the life-cycle, and (2) enabling valid causal inference regarding the effects of economic and health factors on work decisions as well as the effects of work on health status. The FOA calls for analysis of secondary datasets, development of new datasets, observational and experimental analysis, cross-national comparisons; and quasi-experiments enabled by changes in public policy. Research that identifies disparities between population segments or emphasizes at-risk groups is encouraged.

Date due: May 16, 2011 (Letter of intent); June 16, 2011 (Application)

Amount: $50,000

For more information, click here.

Social Science Research coordination with Sea Grants

The California, University of Southern California, Oregon, and Washington Sea Grant programs are jointly interested in coordinated research efforts that bring together researchers from across the region to address specific social science issues of regional priority. Encompassing the shorelines, estuaries and offshore ocean environments from Washington to California, West Coast marine and coastal ecosystems are diverse and rapidly changing. Expanding pressures from population growth, changing land use and large-scale environmental shifts are affecting the natural resources and biogeochemical processes that sustain coastal regions and the communities, businesses and people that rely upon them.

The four West Coast programs are interested in regional proposals that address social science questions related to national Sea Grant goals for healthy coastal ecosystems, sustainable coastal development, safe sustainable seafood supply and hazard resilient coastal communities. Alignment is encouraged with state, regional and national research priorities (see .pdf for links). The range of potential marine and coastal research topics includes, but is not limited to:

• Coastal and marine spatial planning and its application to emerging issues like marine renewable energy
• Use and valuation of coastal and marine resources, including fisheries, and implications for
  management
• Relationships among social, economic and ecological sustainability and resilience of coastal regions
• Patterns, processes and social institutions that underlie changing coastal demographics and economies
• Human roles and responses to regional climate and environmental changes such as severe storms, coastal inundation, ocean acidification, sea level rise and shifting circulation and marine population distributions
• Community and stakeholder engagement, visioning, social learning and other methods to support coastal sustainability and environmental protection

Amount: Varies

Date due: February 22, 2011 (Letter of Intent); May 15, 2011 (Full proposal)

For more information, click here.

Landmarks of American History and Culture (K-12 educators)

The Landmarks of American History and Culture program supports series of one-week residence-based workshops for a national audience of K-12 educators. NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops use historic sites to address central themes and issues in American history, government, literature, art, music, and other related subjects in the humanities. The goals of the workshops are to increase knowledge and appreciation of subjects, ideas, and places significant to American history and culture through humanities reading and site study; build a community of inquiry and provide models of civility and of excellent scholarship and teaching; provide teachers with expertise in the use and interpretation of historical sites and of material and archival resources; and encourage historical and cultural sites to develop greater capacity and scale for professional development programs. NEH Landmarks Workshops are held at or near sites important to American history and culture (e.g., presidential residences or libraries; colonial-era settlements; major battlefields; historic districts; parks and preserves; sites of key economic, social, political, and constitutional developments; and places associated with major writers, artists, and musicians). Applicants should make a compelling case for the historical significance of the site(s), the material resources available for use, and the ways in which the site(s) will enhance the workshop. NEH Landmarks Workshops are academically rigorous and focus on key primary sources, documents, and scholarly works relevant to major themes of American history and culture. Leading scholars should serve as lecturers or seminar leaders. Workshops should also provide the opportunity to work with primary documents and develop classroom resources or a research project. Institutions or organizations that may host workshops include community colleges, universities, four-year colleges, learned societies, libraries or other repositories, centers for advanced study, cultural organizations, and professional associations. NEH expects host institutions to provide facilities conducive to scholarly research, discussion, and interaction. Host institutions should arrange suitable housing for participants, which participants pay for from the stipends provided to them as part of the Landmarks workshop grant.

Amount: $180,000

Date due: March 1, 2011

For more information, click here.

NEH Summer Seminars & Institutes

The NEH Summer Seminars & Institutes grants support faculty development programs in the humanities for school teachers and for college and university teachers. NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes may be as short as two weeks or as long as five weeks. The duration of a program should allow for a rigorous treatment of its topic. NEH Summer Seminars and Institutes extend and deepen knowledge and understanding of the humanities by focusing on significant topics, texts, and issues; contribute to the intellectual vitality and professional development of participants; build a community of inquiry and provide models of civility and excellent scholarship and teaching; and promote effective links between teaching and research in the humanities. An NEH Summer Seminar or Institute may be hosted by a college, university, school system, learned society, center for advanced study, library or other repository, or a cultural or professional organization. The host site must be appropriate for the project, providing facilities for scholarship and collegial interaction. These programs are designed for a national audience of teachers.

Amount: $200,000

Date due: March 1, 2011

For more information, click here.