Applications due March 26, 2025
These instructions are for VU investigators. VUMC investigators should visit the OOR funding opportunity site.
Vanderbilt University may select one nominee per major school/division for the William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Program.
Overview
The award amount is $425,000 distributed over five years, and the goal of the program is to support career development for promising early-career researchers in one of two focus areas:
- Reducing Inequality: Supports studies to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices that reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes in youth (ages 5-25) in the United States, along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status, language minority status, or immigrant origins.
- Improving the Use of Research Evidence: Supports research on strategies focused on improving the use of research evidence in ways that benefit youth (ages 5-25) in the United States. The Foundation welcomes impact studies that test strategies for improving research use as well as whether improving research use leads to improved youth outcomes, descriptive studies that reveal the strategies, mechanisms, or conditions for improving research use, and measurement studies that explore how to construct and implement valid and reliable measures of research use.
The program funds research and mentoring plans that significantly expand junior researchers’ expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas. The foundation recognizes that early-career researchers are rarely given incentives or support to take measured risks in their work, so this award includes a mentoring component as well as a supportive academic community.
A list of previous awardees can be found here.
Eligibility
- Applicants must have received their doctorate within seven years of submitting their application. This is calculated by adding seven years to the date the doctoral degree was conferred. In medicine, the seven-year maximum is dated from the completion of the first residency. The month in which the degree was conferred or residency completed does not matter for this calculation.
- Applicants must hold a tenure-track position. The award may not be used as a postdoctoral fellowship.
- Applicants should have a track record of conducting high-quality research and an interest in pursuing a significant shift in their trajectories as researchers.
See the program website for more information and the 2025 guidelines, including recommended components of the Research Plan and Mentoring Plan.
Internal Application Instructions
Interested faculty should visit https://vanderbilt.infoready4.com/#freeformCompetitionDetail/1966233 to apply for the internal LSO competition and to find additional information about the opportunity. The deadline for the internal competition is March 26, 2025.
Any questions about these opportunities may be directed to VU-LSO@vanderbilt.edu.
