From the Social Science Research Council (SSRC):

State and local governments are responsible for delivering vital public goods and services, including health, education, safety, clean energy, and growth-oriented infrastructure. Yet these governments have little capacity to build the data and evaluation infrastructures that would enable more effective delivery of these important goods and services.

In partnership with several universities in the SSRC’s College and University Fund for the Social Sciences, SSRC recently co-authored a Day One 2025 Policy Memo for the Federation of American Scientists (FAS) calling on the newly elected Congress to establish a network of “Policy Experiment Stations” or policy innovation labs in every state. These labs, hosted by universities and supported by federal and state appropriations, would provide state and local governments with much needed capacity to build integrated data infrastructures and evaluate the efficacy of their programs and policies.

Read more on the FAS website.

The Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad (GPA) program provides grants to support overseas projects in training, research, and curriculum development in modern foreign languages and area studies for teachers, students, and faculty engaged in a common endeavor. Projects may include short-term seminars, curriculum development, group research or study, or advanced intensive language programs.

There are group projects in research, training, and curriculum development. Projects must focus on the humanities, social sciences and languages, and must focus on one or more of the following areas: Africa, East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Western Hemisphere (Central and South America, Mexico, and the Caribbean), East Central Europe and Eurasia, and the Near East. Applications that propose projects focused on Canada or Western Europe will not be funded.

The deadline to apply is Jan. 21, 2025.

See the program page on the USED website for complete information. Additionally, the GPA program officer will host a live question-and-answer session on Wednesday, Dec. 4, from 4 to 5 p.m. (Eastern Time). See "How to Apply" on the website.

The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) is offering "Teaching with AI," a series of workshops designed to prepare faculty for a new era of human learning. January 27 – February 17, 2025, Mondays from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. ET (Virtual).

"The emergence of powerful generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools is having a significant and disruptive impact on higher education today. Almost immediately after the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, students began leveraging AI to help with a variety of course-related tasks, often including the completion of writing and other types of assignments. Meanwhile, nearly all business sectors now anticipate using generative AI in the workplace, and many are already reporting challenges in filling roles that require AI skills.

"While the initial inclination may have been to limit AI’s influence in the classroom, higher education now faces the challenge of preparing students for a world where working with AI is increasingly likely to be a job expectation and a sought-after competency."

See complete information about the workshops on the AAC&U website. Note that many colleges and universities have institutional memberships that may allow faculty members to participate for a reduced price.

The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NIHCD) presents the Fellowship and Career Development Information Series. These virtual Q&A sessions describe funding mechanisms that support training and career development and allow participants to get answers from NICHD experts.

For complete information, see the event website.

The IPUMS Big Microdata Network and NDIRA, a collaboration between IPUMS and the University of Minnesota Life Course Center, are currently accepting submissions for the 2025 Data-Intensive Research Conference, to be held in person in Minneapolis, Minnesota, August 6 - 7, 2025; key components of the program will also be available to virtual participants. The conference theme is Understanding Health and Population Dynamics through Big Microdata. The deadline to apply is January 31, 2025. 

There has been an explosive growth in the quantity of census microdata available for social science and health research. Researchers now have access to full-count individual-level microdata from the U.S. Census spanning 1850 to the present when combining IPUMS full count data with resources available through the Federal Statistical Research Data Center. Similar resources exist in other countries with full count census data and population registers.  Full count microdata are a powerful resource for operationalizing historical and present-day contexts; linking persons, families, or communities to examine trajectories; and elucidating experiences of small demographic groups that often cannot be studied with the available sample in other data sources.

See the complete announcement on the UM website

From the Consortium of Social Science Associations (COSSA):

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Census Bureau have paused plans to reduce the Current Population Survey (CPS) sample in January 2025, due to a provision in the recently passed continuing resolution that allows BLS to spend CPS funds at a faster rate.

See previous COSSA coverage of this issue here.

Request for Information on the CHIPS and Science Act Section 10343: Research Ethics

Section 10343 ("Research Ethics") of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 directs NSF to incorporate ethical, social, safety, and security considerations into the merit review process that is used to evaluate research projects or other activities for funding. Section 10343 notes that "a number of emerging areas of research have potential ethical, social, safety, and security implications that might be apparent as early as the basic research stage." In addition, Section 10343 states that "the incorporation of ethical, social, safety, and security considerations into the research design and review process for Federal awards may help mitigate potential harms before they happen." Moreover, Section 10343 states that "The Foundation should continue to work with stakeholders to promote best practices for governance of research in emerging technologies at every stage of research."

Comments must be received on or before 11:59 P.M. Eastern time on Friday, December 13, 2024.

See the complete announcement and link to comment on the NSF website.

From the Social Science Research Council (SSRC):

The Policy Innovation Days initiative, supported by Arnold Ventures, provides funding and support for U.S. member universities to work with state and local government partners to host convenings connecting campus-based researchers with agencies seeking research and evaluation support.

Research partnerships between universities and state and local governments can help communities adopt more effective ways of delivering critically important public goods and services like health, education, safety, clean air and water, and growth-oriented infrastructure. Both federal and philanthropic funds can support these research and evaluation partnerships. Yet it is not easy for either government agencies or campus-based researchers to form these research collaborations.

The Policy Innovation Days initiative supports convenings designed to incubate impactful and funded research and evaluation collaborations between SSRC member universities and their state and local government partners. The SSRC will provide planning support, funding for convening expenses, and post-event support to help develop funding proposals for partnered research projects.

See complete information about the program online here.

"Biomedical researchers should change the way they use race and ethnicity in their research, says a new National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report, calling on researchers to scrutinize whether the use of race and ethnicity is appropriate at each stage of their work — and explain the scientific reasoning behind their decision in any publications.  
 
"Biomedical research spans human health and disease — from laboratory studies of animal tissue that improve our understanding of human biology, to clinical trials for new medical treatments. Race and ethnicity are used widely in biomedicine. However, the report says, racial and ethnic categories are often used inappropriately in biomedical research as proxies for biology — or as poor substitutes for factors such as genetics or environmental exposures — despite there being no genetic or biological basis for race. In some discrete cases, their use can be appropriate, for example in identifying health disparities."

Read the full media release here

Access the report here

ASA President Adia Harvey Wingfield  announced on November 1 the appointment of Dr. Heather Washington as Executive Director of the American Sociological Association. Heather has been serving as Interim Executive Director since May 2024. In August, the Finance Committee unanimously recommended Heather for appointment to Executive Director, and in October, ASA Council enthusiastically and unanimously voted to appoint her to the position.

Heather has been an integral part of ASA since 2021. She began her career at ASA as Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), where she directed the Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) and led efforts to advance ASA’s DEI goals. Most recently, Heather served as ASA Deputy Director, a role in which she continued to lead the association’s DEI efforts, while also serving as the principal investigator on two large grants: The National Science Foundation-funded ASA Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant and the William T. Grant Foundation-funded project on recognizing and rewarding community-engaged scholarship in tenure and promotion.

Heather holds a PhD and MA in sociology from The Ohio State University. Prior to joining ASA staff, she was an associate professor of sociology with tenure and an accomplished researcher and teacher. Heather is a Fellow of the ASA MFP (Cohort 38), a recipient of the American Society of Criminology minority fellowship, and a graduate of the Ronald E. McNair Post-Baccalaureate Achievement Program. In 2018, she was selected as an Emerging Scholar by Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, a significant honor recognizing professors who have distinguished themselves in their various academic disciplines and who are working to make our society more equitable and just.