Program Description: The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports the professional development of early-career researchers in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. The goal is to help Scholars
tackle important questions that will advance theory, policy, and practice for youth and to do so with an expanded array of expertise that includes different methods, disciplinary perspectives, and content knowledge. Potential Scholars should have a promising track record of conducting high-quality research, but want to pursue a qualitative shift in their trajectory as researchers. We recognize that early-career researchers often have few supports and incentives to take measured risks. So, applicants are asked to identify areas in which they want to develop their capabilities and propose five-year research and mentoring plans to facilitate that expansion.

CURRENT RESEARCH INTERESTS

Proposed research plans must fit the Foundation’s research interests. We currently support research to understand and improve the everyday settings of youth ages 8 to 25 in the United States. Specifically, we fund studies that enhance understanding of:

• How youth settings work, how they affect youth development, and how they can be improved; and
• When, how, and under what conditions research evidence is used in policy and practice that affect youth, and how its use can be improved.

The Foundation’s Senior Program Team has written a series of essays for our Annual Reports in which we describe our research interests in more depth, including the types of studies we support and our grantees’ work. We encourage applicants to review these essays. In addition, we have statements detailing our interests in intervention research, measurement work, policy, practice, and the interplay of biological and social processes. All this information is available on our website, as are additional resources (e.g., reference lists, tools, publications, presentations, lists of funded grants) related to our interests.

SELECTED ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

• Applicants must have received their terminal degree within seven years of submitting their application. We calculate this 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.
• Applicants must be employed in career-ladder positions at nonprofit institutions. For many applicants, this means holding a tenure-track position in a university.
• Applicants of any discipline are eligible.

Please see the solicitation for complete information.

Associate Deans or Designates shall select the Division's nominee by screening all of its internal candidates.

Please send the candidate’s information to the Office of Sponsored Projects (OSP) via limitedsub@austin.utexas.edu no later than June 15, 2012. The nominee’s information will be posted on the limited sumbmission website as a reference for OSP's Proposal Specialists.

If a nominee’s information does not appear on the website, OSP will not submit an application to ensure that an individual not selected by their college/school does not proceed. OSP will seek verification from the Dean/Associate Dean for Research in such an instance.

Dr. Paul von Hippel, LBJ School of Public Affairs

Dr. Aprile Benner, College of Natural Sciences