The Russell Sage Foundation is dedicated to the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States. It supports innovative research on social, political, and economic inequalities and aims to enhance the understanding and mitigation of factors contributing to inequalities. The foundation fosters projects exploring the distribution of outcomes across various groups and encourages methodological diversity and interdisciplinary collaboration in research.
The program on Social, Political, and Economic Inequality supports research aimed at understanding the multifaceted aspects of inequalities in the U.S. and their impacts on various societal outcomes, including education, labor market access, social mobility, and civic participation. It encourages submissions of investigator-initiated research that employs innovative methodologies to explore how economic, racial, ethnic, gender, and other forms of inequality affect distribution of resources and opportunities. The foundation is particularly interested in projects that address economic wellbeing, equality of opportunity, the influence of demographic and labor market shifts on inequality, the role of policies and legal decisions in exacerbating or mitigating inequalities, and the psychological and cultural effects of inequality. It supports original data collection, survey or field experiments, qualitative studies, and encourages interdisciplinary approaches. Funding options include Trustee Grants up to $200,000 and Presidential Awards up to $75,000 for projects with special data needs, both aimed to cover research assistance, data acquisition and analysis, and investigator time for conducting and disseminating research findings.