Call for Research Proposals
Identifying and Addressing Barriers and Opportunities
to Women’s Political Power
Meet the 2021 CAWP Research Grants Recipients
For nearly five decades, the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University has been committed to promoting greater knowledge and understanding about the role of women in American politics, enhancing women's influence in public life, and expanding the diversity of women in politics and government. While we have celebrated much progress over the past 50 years, women remain significantly underrepresented across all levels of U.S. politics and continue to confront barriers distinct from men. CAWP tracks data and conducts scholarly research about women’s political participation in the United States to better understand and address these dynamics. We are also committed to amplifying and promoting translation of others’ gender and politics research to yield progress for women in politics.
As part of this effort, CAWP will offer both small and large research grants to investigate and illuminate barriers and opportunities to increasing women’s political power in the United States. This request for proposals is supported by the generosity and commitment of Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company founded by Melinda French Gates.
Preference will be given to research proposals that:
- Advance our understanding of the distinct realities that women of color navigate in U.S. politics;
- Identify and assess steps for translating research into action to increase women’s political power, including effective interventions to disrupt gender and/or intersectional biases in U.S. political institutions;
- Challenge one-size-fits-all assessments of barriers or opportunities to women in U.S. politics; and
- Expand the sites for research focus to non-electoral positions of political power and/or to sub-national levels of political representation.
While our preference is for research proposals related to one or more of the priority areas and related questions outlined below, researchers are welcome to propose research projects that fall outside, but are related to, these areas.