Grants Database

The Foundation awards approximately 200 grants per year (excluding the Sloan Research Fellowships), totaling roughly $80 million dollars in annual commitments in support of research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and economics. This database contains grants for currently operating programs going back to 2008. For grants from prior years and for now-completed programs, see the annual reports section of this website.

Grants Database

Grantee
Amount
City
Year
  • grantee: Science Festival Foundation
    amount: $600,000
    city: New York, NY
    year: 2010

    To support the fourth World Science Festival and to begin implementing the Strategic Plan and Business Development Initiative

    • Program Public Understanding
    • Sub-program New Media
    • Investigator Tracy Day

    This grant to the Science Festival Foundation will provide support for the planning, development, and production of the fourth World Science Festival , a five-day series of speakers, panels, exhibits and events hosted throughout New York City which aims to contribute to a shift in the public perception of science, making manifest how science is as indispensible to a rich life as other cultural mainstays like music, theatre, art, dance and literature. Grant funds will also support the Science Festival Foundation's implementation of the first phase of its three-year Strategic Plan and Business Development initiative, which aims to develop a revenue model to ensure the Festival's long-term sustainability and to expand the Festival's impact through various channels: including the use of live, digital, and broadcast platforms; national and international partnerships, and educational outreach.

    To support the fourth World Science Festival and to begin implementing the Strategic Plan and Business Development Initiative

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  • grantee: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    amount: $644,920
    city: Cambridge, MA
    year: 2010

    To support research on the barriers to working longer and how to facilitate work at older ages

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Working Longer
    • Investigator David Wise

    David Wise, of the Kennedy School of Government and the National Bureau of Economic Research, has directed a remarkably successful program at NBER since 1985 on the Economics of Aging. He has now assembled a team of distinguished economists, including Stanford's John Shoven and Harvard's David Cutler, to expand this program's focus to include research on aging and work, by examining the conditions in public policy and in the workplace that make it difficult or costly for people to work longer than conventional retirement age. This grant supports four interrelated research projects. The first project develops tools for estimating how policy reforms would affect work at older ages and details two possible reforms: a "paid up" social security reform and a Medicare-as-first-payer reform, each of which could facilitate longer working lives. The second project analyzes relationships between firm policy provisions and work behavior at older ages, based on the diverse pension and retiree health plans of employees of Towers Watson client companies. The third project addresses the effect of improving health status on the ability to work at older ages and analyzes mortality reductions in 12 countries, emphasizing the rationale that these trends provide for facilitating longer working lives. The fourth project further develops an international perspective by exploring older workers' preferences for work arrangements and employers' willingness to accommodate such preferences in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France.

    To support research on the barriers to working longer and how to facilitate work at older ages

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  • grantee: The Urban Institute
    amount: $416,230
    city: Washington, DC
    year: 2010

    To assess disincentives in state and local defined benefit pension plans for working longer

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Working Longer
    • Investigator Richard Johnson

    Unlike in the private sector, almost all state and local government workers-from employees of state agencies to public school teachers and policemen-participate in defined benefit pension plans. Not only do these plans strain public budgets, they generally incent early retirement by penalizing work at older ages. Funds from this grant will support a project by the Urban Institute to enhance knowledge and awareness of the work disincentives created by state and local defined benefit pension plans and of existing reform options that encourage public?sector employees to work longer. Under the direction of Richard Johnson and Eugene Steuerle, this project will accomplish several objectives over the course of three stages of work. The first stage of the project will quantify work disincentives in state and local defined benefit pension plans, compare disincentives across states and localities and across occupations, and identify existing reforms that have reduced work disincentives. The second stage of the project will match these disincentive measures to state and local workers in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and model their impact on work and retirement decisions. The final stage will follow state and local retirees over time in the SIPP and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to measure their economic status and the share who return to work, either in the public or private sector. Ultimately, this project will enrich our understanding of how defined benefit pension plans discourage work at older ages and identify reforms that do or potentially could encourage later retirement.

    To assess disincentives in state and local defined benefit pension plans for working longer

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  • grantee: Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities
    amount: $179,017
    city: Washington, DC
    year: 2010

    To launch a project that will result in enhanced access and success of minority males in STEM disciplines at APLU-member institutions

    • Program Higher Education
    • Investigator Lorenzo Esters

    The relative absence of minority males, compared to minority females, in higher education and subsequent careers has become widely recognized across the United States. This is especially true for African American males, although the problem is also very real for Hispanic and Native American males. Although a few individual universities (including Howard University, Ohio State University and the University of Georgia) have begun to focus on this issue, it urgently requires higher profile and more systematic attention. This grant will fund efforts by the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) to take up this issue for its own member institutions within the fields of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology. APLU's 218 member institutions enroll 3.5 million undergraduates and 1.1 million graduate students, including 34% of all students and 36% of minority males who are enrolled in U.S. four-year public and private institutions. The first phase of this effort will employ a planning task force of prominent scholars, university administrators and others to define the problem and develop an action plan. Anticipated products include a published paper that presents the action plan, summarizes what is known about the issue, identifies gaps in this knowledge that could be filled by further research, provides a preliminary list of resources for university presidents and others who want to address the issue, and summarizes the attributes of successful programs that are already underway. The planning task force will also produce a policy statement that can be endorsed by presidents of APLU-member institutions that raises awareness about the issue of minority males in STEM disciplines and frames the issues for an anticipated second phase of the project.

    To launch a project that will result in enhanced access and success of minority males in STEM disciplines at APLU-member institutions

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  • grantee: Public Media Lab
    amount: $797,836
    city: Chevy Chase, MD
    year: 2010

    To produce and broadcast a one-hour PBS documentary "Admiral Rickover and the Nuclear Navy"

    • Program Public Understanding
    • Sub-program Television
    • Investigator Michael Pack

    This grant funds a project by The Public Media Lab, under the auspices of veteran, award-winning television producer Michael Pack, to produce and broadcast a PBS documentary about the pugnacious, pioneering Admiral Hyman Rickover and his role in the development of both the first nuclear submarine and the first civilian nuclear power plant. Admiral Hyman Rickover was a take-no-prisoners innovator who transformed the navy and the role of commercial nuclear power as part of President Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program, a subject that remains timely today. In addition, Rickover recruited more scientists and engineers into the navy and attempted to transform the American educational system to produce more qualified technologists. The documentary will combine interviews, footage, and live-action sequences and promises to appeal to a significant audience, advancing the public understanding of science and technology with an important and compelling story that has never been seen on television before.

    To produce and broadcast a one-hour PBS documentary "Admiral Rickover and the Nuclear Navy"

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  • grantee: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    amount: $999,155
    city: Cambridge, MA
    year: 2010

    To initiate and organize research on the economics of digital information

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Economics
    • Investigator Shane Greenstein

    The digitization of information on a massive scale challenges many traditional assumptions about how media markets, intellectual property laws, innovation, governance, and other important aspects of our world can or should work. Adjustments taking place due to advances in digital information technology are rapid, significant, unfinished, and little studied by objective academics as opposed to interested stakeholders. This grant to the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), supports efforts to establish an impartial community of scholars dedicated to studying the determinants and consequences of digitization. Activities funded through this grant divide into three broad categories: the development an economic framework for analyzing the effects of changes in and diffusion of digital information technology that is theoretically grounded and empirically relevant; the application of such a framework to the systematic evaluation of policy and governance issues; and the improvement of measures of the extent, impact, and potential for the diffusion and use of digital information technology through providing datasets that researchers can share. Funds from this grant will support annual workshops at the NBER Summer Institute, winter outreach meetings with practitioners and a culminating conference and proceedings. Funds for small research grants, postdoctoral fellowships, and data infrastructure are also included. Taken together, the funded activities represent a comprehensive and unique opportunity for improving how we understand the problems and promise of digitization.

    To initiate and organize research on the economics of digital information

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  • grantee: L.A. Theatre Works
    amount: $266,239
    city: Venice, CA
    year: 2010

    To record four new science plays, including two new Sloan-commissioned plays for broadcast on public radio and for distribution to schools, libraries, and online retail partners

    • Program Public Understanding
    • Sub-program Theater
    • Investigator Susan Loewenberg

    This grant to L.A. Theatre Works (LATW) provides support to its continuing project to record and distribute science plays. Over the next two years, L.A. Theatre Works will record four more science plays, including two new plays commissioned through the Foundation's Theater program. In addition to garnering significant new audiences for each play, recordings become part of LATW's permanent Audio Theater Collection made available to individuals and libraries through an online catalogue and retail partner sites, including iTunes, Audible.com, Barnesandnoble.com, and Overdrive.net. Additionally, two of the four plays will be distributed free of charge to 3,000 schools in over 600 cities in all 50 states, with accompanying curricular material. While only a few thousand people can see science-themed plays in their original, limited theatrical run, LATW guarantees that these plays will be heard by hundreds of thousands of people over many years and belong to the permanent collections of schools, libraries, and retail partners.

    To record four new science plays, including two new Sloan-commissioned plays for broadcast on public radio and for distribution to schools, libraries, and online retail partners

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  • grantee: Dartmouth College
    amount: $119,591
    city: Hanover, NH
    year: 2010

    To create and study network models of systemic risk in banking and finance

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Economics
    • Investigator Daniel Rockmore

    To create and study network models of systemic risk in banking and finance

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  • grantee: National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    amount: $115,690
    city: Cambridge, MA
    year: 2010

    To convene conferences on the measurement of systemic risk and liquidity

    • Program Research
    • Sub-program Economics
    • Investigator Arvind Krishnamurthy

    To convene conferences on the measurement of systemic risk and liquidity

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  • grantee: University of Maryland, Baltimore County
    amount: $14,240
    city: Baltimore, MD
    year: 2010

    To define a program and obtain funding for a minority focused, undergraduate program in mathematics, statistics, and economics

    • Program Higher Education
    • Investigator Scott Farrow

    To define a program and obtain funding for a minority focused, undergraduate program in mathematics, statistics, and economics

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