https://www.fcd-us.org/2025-young-scholars-program-call-for-proposals/
The Foundation for Child Development is currently accepting proposals for its 2025 Young Scholars Program (YSP). YSP supports scholarship for early-career researchers. 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. Research awards are up to $225,000 for primary data collection and analysis and up to $180,000 for secondary data analysis.
Letter of Intent Deadline: Monday, June 3, 2024
As 2025 represents the culmination of the Foundation’s 10-year initiative focused on strengthening the capacity and status of the ECE workforce, the 2025 YSP application cycle is the final opportunity to select Young Scholars within these programmatic objectives.
Research Focus
Proposals must be relevant to the Foundation’s interest in implementation research to support the capacity and status of the ECE workforce. Studies may encompass descriptive, experimental, or measurement-focused approaches. The Foundation seeks research proposals with implications for policy or practice. Additionally, research that builds from the interests and priorities of the communities, educators, or families who are engaged in the research is highly valued.
For more resources on how the Foundation thinks about implementation research, its approaches and methods, and recommendations for future research, we highly recommend that applicants review Getting it Right: Using Implementation Research to Improve Outcomes in Early Care and Education and its companion piece, Getting it Right: The Conversation Guide for Preparing the Next Generation of Implementation Researchers.
Who Should Apply?
YSP is an open competition. The Foundation is committed to diversity and equity in our work and through our grantees. To increase the diversity of research perspectives, the Foundation encourages 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 researchers from low-income communities and/or immigrant families
- Scholars who represent a variety of disciplines and methodological approaches
Principal Investigators must have received their terminal doctoral degree (e.g., Ph.D., Ed.D., Psy.D., J.D., M.D.) within 10 years of submitting their applications to the program. In medicine, the date of the completion of the first residency is used for this calculation.
How to Apply
For additional information about the research focus, eligibility criteria, application timeline, and how to apply, please click here.
The deadline to submit a Letter of Intent is Monday, June 3, 2024 at 11:59 PM ET.
Questions?
Please view the YSP FAQs and send all inquiries about the application and technical questions about the online system to ysp@fcd-us.org.