Call for Proposals: 2025 Young Scholars Program – US

The program funds research projects that aim to clarify how, why, and for whom policies, programs, and practices support the early care and education (ECE) workforce and shape children’s early learning experiences and well-being in early childhood, defined as birth through age eight.

The Foundation for Child Development aims to harness the power of research to ensure that all young children benefit from early learning experiences that affirm their individual, family, and community assets, fortify them against harmful consequences arising from poverty, racism, prejudice, and discrimination, and strengthen their developmental potential.

The Young Scholars Program (YSP) aims to support the research of emerging scholars who are poised to advance research at the nexus of policy and practice to ensure that all young children, and especially those marginalized by racism, xenophobia, or economic inequality, are able to thrive.

Their focus with YSP centers on research projects that aim to build, test, or increase understanding of policies, programs, or practices that support the early care and education (ECE) workforce to promote young children’s early learning experiences. The program funds descriptive, experimental, measurement, and implementation studies that aim to clarify how, why, and for whom policies, programs, and practices support the ECE workforce in ways that positively benefit young children, defined as birth through age eight.

Diversity is an asset for building a strong and productive society, and the Foundation is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work and through our grantees. To increase the diversity of research perspectives, the Foundation encourages YSP applications from scholars who are from underrepresented groups that have historically experienced poverty, racism, xenophobia, prejudice, and discrimination. Such groups include, but are not limited to: researchers of color, first-generation college graduates, and those from low-income communities and/or immigrant families. They also encourage applications that represent a variety of disciplines and methodological approaches.

Focus Areas

• YSP funds studies that align with the Foundation’s research focus areas. In 2015, the Foundation launched a 10-year initiative focused on strengthening the capacity and status of the ECE workforce across diverse settings. For the 2025 application cycle, YSP seeks to support early-career scholars with interests in conducting policy- and practice-relevant research under this initiative.
• Within this frame, the Foundation’s programmatic priorities are dedicated to supporting the workforce and identifying research with the potential to:
  • Advance the status and well-being of the ECE workforce;
  • Enhance the quality of practice of the ECE workforce; or,
  • Strengthen ECE leadership to create more supportive environments for the workforce.
• With 2025 marking the final year of the Foundation’s 10-year initiative focused on strengthening the capacity and status of the ECE workforce, the 2025 YSP application cycle will be the last cohort of Young Scholars awarded under these programmatic priorities. For this reason, Promising Scholars will not be awarded in 2025.

Priorities

• The Foundation is specifically interested in research that can strengthen the ECE workforce who serve the YSP priority populations of young children who experience the harmful effects of poverty, racism, xenophobia, prejudice, and discrimination across the birth to age eight continuum. The priority populations include:
  • Children who experience poverty
  • Children of color, including those with Asian American, Latinx, Black/African American, and/or Indigenous backgrounds
  • Children in immigrant or refugee families, including child migrants, undocumented minors, children whose family members have been detained or deported
  • Children who are multilingual learners
  • Children with special education classifications
  • Children experiencing homelessness
  • Children who experience trauma or child maltreatment

Funding Information

• Below, they provide information about the how YSP funds can be used:
  • Research projects involving primary data collection or a combination of primary data collection and secondary data analysis are eligible for a grant award, including indirect costs, of up to $225,000 to be used over a two to three-year period. The maximum grant award for research projects solely focused on secondary data analysis is $180,000, inclusive of indirect costs, to be used over a two- to three-year period.
  • Grant funds are intended to support the Principal Investigator’s salary and direct research expenses. Indirect and overhead costs are limited to 15% of the total direct personnel costs.
  • Up to 10% of direct personnel costs may be used to support senior faculty or advisors as consultants.
  • Each award will be paid directly to, and administered by, the affiliated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization at which the recipient holds his/her/their full-time position.

Award Information

• Award recipients are designated as Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars. Two to four YSP grants are typically awarded each year though the number varies depending on the number of compelling applications and available funding.
• If you are an awarded Foundation for Child Development Young Scholar, you must meet the following requirements of the program:
  • Initiate the research project within three months of award notification. Award notification for each cycle typically occurs in March or April.
  • Submit a request to the institution’s internal review board (IRB), if applicable. For studies with human subjects, applicants will be required to submit either proof of a submitted application for IRB approval or confirmation of IRB approval. To offset any potential delays, the process for IRB review must be underway at the time of full application submission.
  • Complete research that results in a manuscript (e.g., report, book, or article) suitable for publication for which the Principal Investigator is the first author.
  • Submit annual narrative and financial reports on the progress of the research and grant expenditures, respectively.
  • Participate in meetings with other Foundation for Child Development Young Scholars. Expenses for these meetings will be covered separately by the Foundation and should not be included in the proposal budget.

Supporting the ECE Workforce

• For the 2025 YSP application cycle, all proposed research should have primary questions that are relevant to at least one of the Foundation’s three ECE workforce goals. The ECE workforce refers to the adults who educate and care for young children, defined as birth through age eight, such as lead and assistant teachers, educators, and providers, as well as the individuals who provide leadership, support, and professional development (e.g., coaches, home visitors, administrators, higher education faculty, etc.) to others in the ECE workforce. They are interested in the workforce across a variety of settings (e.g., center- and home-based) and systems (e.g., regulated and informal).
• The ECE workforce plays a critical role in the lives of young children. The quality of their interactions and the stimulation that they provide affect children’s learning and other areas of development. Yet, the work of these individuals-who have historically been women of color and immigrants-is often unrecognized and underappreciated in the U.S.

Research Methodologies

• They welcome a range of quantitative or qualitative methodological approaches that may involve new data collection or secondary data analysis. Regardless of the approach, type of study, or source of data, all research must be conducted in a racially, culturally, and linguistically responsive manner and produce policy- and practice-relevant findings to support the ECE workforce and the young children in YSP’s priority populations.
• Analysis of international data and data from international sources that provide comparisons relevant to U.S. policies, programs, and/or practices is also within the scope of interest. However, international data collection is not supported.

Eligibility Criteria

• Principal Investigators must have received their terminal doctoral degree (e.g., Ph.D., Ed.D., Psy.D., J.D., M.D.) within ten years of submitting their applications to the program. In medicine, the date of the completion of the first residency is used for this calculation.
• For the duration of the award, Principal Investigators must be full-time, paid employees of the affiliated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (located within the United States and its territories). The organization will receive and process the Foundation’s grant, as well as contribute material and in-kind support for the funded research project.
• The affiliated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (such as research firms, colleges, or universities) must have a minimum annual operating budget of $2.5 million, a minimum three-year track record in leading and conducting at least three multi-year research projects (i.e., at least three over the last three years), describe research as a core activity in recent annual reports, and have produced and publicly disseminated a minimum of five publications (over the last five years) reporting the results of their research.
• The applicant is the sole Principal Investigator and will lead the proposed research (no Co- Investigators). An applicant may only submit one Letter of Intent (LOI) or full proposal application per YSP application cycle.
• More than one applicant may apply from a single institution per YSP application cycle.
• Returning applicants are welcome and strongly encouraged to re-apply.

For more information, visit Foundation for Child Development.