Social Science Research Council

SSRC Collaborative grants are designed to raise incentives for academic-advocacy collaboration in the design, conduct, and application of research. The Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere program has offered four collaborative funding models: Small Grants, Large Grants, Emergency Grants, and Research Bounties.

The application window for all Collaborative Grants has now closed.

Visit the Media Research Hub or subscribe to MediaResearchHub-News for program updates and other research funding opportunities.

For a list of all previously funded projects: http://mediaresearchhub.ssrc.org/grants/funded-projects

1) Small Grants provide up to $7,500 for short-term academic research in support of advocacy and activism in media and communications. In the past, Small Grant opportunities (five separate rounds to date) have been available at roughly 4-6 month intervals.

For submission criteria, a list of past recipients, and other details, click here.

2) Large Grants,  awarded once a year, provide up to $30,000 in support for academic-advocacy research collaborations designed to change media / telecommunications infrastructure, practices, or policies. In 2008, Large Grants (totaling $210,000)  were awarded to seven projects addressing a range of exciting research needs, from advocacy strategies for Latinos to engage with media institutions, to action research developing a code of practices for Thai community radio, to initiatives that build collaborations between advocates and activists working to democratize the digital communications platform, etc.

General areas of interest include:

• Measuring the success or failure of mainstream media in advancing different public interest goals or values.
• Measuring the impact of existing alternative or community media systems on communities, public discourse, or democratic processes.
• Developing better, actionable accounts of the role of new media in people's lives.
• Analyzing policymaking and/or regulatory systems.
• Analyzing emerging systems, frameworks, or models of media and communications that transcend the current regulatory framework.
• Analyzing economic models, industry structure, markets, or audiences for different kinds of media
• Creating analytical tools or research resources for use by advocates, communities, or the public.
• Documenting or evaluating advocacy or organizing strategies around communications and media issues.

3) Emergency Grants, which range from $7,500 to $30,000, are intended to take advantage of unexpected opportunities for strategic, short-term research – often in relation to small windows of opportunity for input into policy processes. Emergency Grant requests have been accepted on a rolling basis for those submitting urgent research needs that fall outside our Small and Large Grants schedule. 

4) Research Bounties combine a prize system for new research ideas with an online project clearinghouse. In the typical scenario, advocates, activists or other research users post research needs on the Media Research Hub site. These needs can range from narrow factual questions to broader, longer-term requests for assistance.  The SSRC selection committee (or other funders) will then place monetary prizes on some of these requests.  These prizes can vary in size according to project, urgency or other factors, but the preferred model involves rapid turnover and small awards under $10,000.

Research Bounties were most recently awarded in Oct. 2008 to two new projects.

Grants Applicant Criteria

Projects must involve substantive collaboration between:

• A researcher based at a university, college, or other academically-oriented research institution. Advanced graduate students are eligible.
• A US-based non-profit advocacy, organizing or community group working on media and/or telecommunications issues.

Project Criteria

All projects must:

• Be strategically useful in their proposed advocacy and/or organizing context.
• Produce scholarship that meets academic standards.
• Have a realistic workflow, budget, and timeframe.
• Explain their relationship to existing bodies of research.

Collaborations will be evaluated in part on whether they meet some or all of the following criteria:

• Address issues of disparate impact on communities on the basis of race, class, gender, ethnicity, age or other identity/status category.
• Build capacity—skills, tools, experience, access to data sets—within the "user" organization and/or community.
• Have a clear plan for the dissemination of the research to target audiences.
• Have uses outside the immediate intended context.
• Use methods or models of research that have proved effective in similar contexts.
• Reflect diversity in the staff or group involved with the project.
• Involve collaboration between two or more advocacy/community groups in the project design and the plan of use for the research.
• Use participatory methods to engage community and/or advocacy group members in framing the questions, data collection, and/or analysis.

Other Conditions:

• Public-interest groups with unusual financial status (e.g., non-profit fiscal sponsorship or non-commercial for-profit status) should contact SSRC program staff.
• The academic research partner cannot be a paid staff member of the partnering nonprofit organization.
• International proposals will be solicited from SSRC partner organizations.
• There are no citizenship requirements for participation in the program.
• Applicants may apply for both small grants and large grants. Applicants with current SSRC collaborative grant funding should explain how the new proposal builds on completed work from that grant.

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Program Background

The Collaborative Grants project is part of the Necessary Knowledge for a Democratic Public Sphere (NKDPS) Program of the Social Science Research Council, working in partnership with CIMA: Center for International Media Action and the Donald McGannon Communication Research Center at Fordham University. The program is funded by the Media, Arts and Culture program of the Ford Foundation.

For all program-related inquiries, please write to mediahub@ssrc.org. Subscribe to MediaResearchHub-News for program updates, research funding opportunities, and conference information.