IRP Extramural Large Grants for Refugee Resettlement Research 2025–2027, Call for Applications – LOI Due: 1/31/2025

Letter of Intent Deadline: January 31, 2025, 11:59 p.m. CST
Informational Webinar: Tuesday, January 14, 2025, 2:30–3:00 CST
Zoom link: https://uwmadison.zoom.us/j/92897081565
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View/download full RFP in PDF format | Frequently Asked Questions

ABOUT THE GRANT

As the National Research Center on Poverty and Economic Mobility, the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in partnership with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) within the Administration for Children and Families at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services seeks to fund research on the following four programmatic areas focused on refugees:

• Physical and behavioral health
• Employment and economic stability
• Education and/or English language proficiency
• Social adjustment and integration

This research can be conducted using quantitative or qualitative methods and should seek to answer research questions related to the programmatic areas listed. When appropriate, we encourage researchers to use government-sponsored survey data that explores the economic self-sufficiency and integration of resettled refugees who entered the United States within the past five years. (Learn more about the Annual Survey of Refugees below.)

Proposals are invited from PhD-holding scholars at all career stages, from postdoctoral fellows to senior faculty, and from all disciplines. Successful projects will be designed to generate actionable policy and/or programmatic implications at the federal, state, or local levels for refugee resettlement programs.

If appropriate for the project aims or research question, applicants are encouraged to consider meaningfully engaging affected communities in the research and/or dissemination process (e.g., collaboratively developing research questions, potential methods, and plans for data collection; working with community members to interpret findings and put them into context; and sharing results in ways that are accessible to impacted individuals such as through visuals, blogs, and videos).

About IRP

The Institute for Research on Poverty is a center for interdisciplinary research into the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality in the United States and the impacts of related policies and programs.

As the National Research Center on Poverty and Economic Mobility sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, IRP coordinates the US Collaborative of Poverty Centers (CPC). IRP and its partner centers support and train poverty and economic mobility scholars with a special focus on expanding opportunities for scholars from historically underrepresented groups. In addition, IRP and its partner centers provide relevant, cutting-edge research on a wide range of topics with the goal of improving the effectiveness of public policies to reduce poverty and its consequences.

About ORR

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services serves refugees and other humanitarian entrants, including asylees, Cuban and Haitian entrants, Special Immigrant Visa holders, Amerasians, victims of human trafficking, and unaccompanied children. By providing these arrived populations with critical resources, ORR promotes their economic and social well-being. In fulfilling its mission, ORR partners with federal and state government entities, local providers, and ten national resettlement agencies with hundreds of affiliated offices across the country.

Annual Survey of Refugees

Since the 1980s, ORR has sponsored the Annual Survey of Refugees (ASR), which collects information on refugees during their first five years after arrival in the United States. The ASR, developed in partnership with the Urban Institute, is the only scientifically collected source of national data on refugees’ progress toward self-sufficiency and integration. ORR uses the ASR results alongside other information sources to fulfill its Congressionally-mandated reporting requirement following the Refugee Act of 1980. The latest ORR Annual Report to Congress is available here.

The 2016–2022 ASR cross-sectional datasets, survey questionnaires, and technical documentation are publicly available online via ICPSR. Each survey year of the ASR targets 1,500 completed interviews from refugee households, in which the principal applicant provides information for the household and acts as the proxy informant for all eligible refugees within the household. Respondents provide information on demographics and progress towards economic self-sufficiency and integration in the United States.

Researchers may choose to combine individual years of the ASR to have a larger cross-sectional sample. However, the 2020–2022 ASR employed a significantly revised and improved questionnaire, so researchers should use caution combining or comparing earlier years of the ASR with 2020 and beyond.

Despite being the sole nationally representative survey of recently arrived refugees in the United States, the ASR has been sparsely used in scholarly work. Examples of project topics leveraging the ASR could include, but are not limited to:

• To what extent do measures of economic self-sufficiency of recently arrived refugees vary based on their country of origin?
• How has the personal well-being of recently arrived refugees changed in the past few years?

Terms

Eligibility

The principal investigator must hold a doctorate or the highest degree appropriate for their discipline at the time of application. Applicants must be associated with a university. Individuals not associated with a university (domestic or foreign) and foreign entities are ineligible for grants made under this announcement.

University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty and postdoctoral fellows are ineligible for funding.

Contract Period

The grant contract period is flexible depending on scope of the project not to exceed 24 months from grant start date.

Funding

Grants may not exceed $50,000. This amount includes indirect costs at the applicant’s institution, if required (see Item 4 under Application Instructions below).

Commitment

Receipt of a grant from IRP will require a commitment to:

• Within the first 6 weeks of the grant period, participate in a video conference with IRP to discuss the project and how to maximize its policy
• Submit brief quarterly progress reports (< 150 words) of work accomplished during the preceding three months every quarter in the established grant period except for the last two quarters (see timeline for more details) to irpapply@ssc.wisc.edu.
• Submit a draft paper for review and comments to irpapply@ssc.wisc.edu three months before the end of the established grant period.
• Within two weeks of submitting the draft, participate in a video conference with IRP to discuss the draft paper and discuss how to maximize its policy relevance.
• Submit a revised draft by end of established grant period to irpapply@ssc.wisc.edu.
• If requested, present the paper at a seminar, workshop, or other mutually agreed-upon public event sponsored by IRP.
• Agree to have the work summarized in an IRP publication (e.g., Focus on Poverty; Fast Focus Poverty Brief), webinar, and/or podcast.
• Submit a final paper for academic publication no later than nine months after the end of the established grant period and alert IRP of the submission by sending an email to irpapply@ssc.wisc.edu with the name of the

All travel related to presentations requested by IRP will be funded by IRP directly; applicants do not need to include these travel expenses in their budgets. When relevant, IRP will coordinate meetings with ORR and principal investigators.

All publications associated with the grant should acknowledge the support of IRP and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Selection Process

This is a two-stage selection process. All interested parties must submit a letter of interest which will be reviewed by IRP-affiliated scholars and staff as well as ORR research staff for the following:

• The relevance of the topic to one of IRP’s focal themes; and
• The potential usefulness of the proposed research project to influence the policymaking process, especially related to refugee resettlement programs.

IRP will provide feedback to applicants. Top projects will be invited to submit full applications. (See timeline for details.)

Selected applicants will have additional time to submit a full proposal. (See timeline for details.) Final applications will be reviewed as follows.

1. Applications will be screened for completeness, including:
   1. Online application completed; and
   2. Application materials
2. Qualifying applications will be evaluated by a panel of distinguished scholars from IRP, its CPC partners, and ORR research staff and The panels will use the application materials as the basis for scoring the following:
   1. The potential usefulness of the proposed research project to influence the policymaking process, especially related to refugee resettlement programs;
   2. The potential usefulness of the proposed research project for the advancement of scientific knowledge;
   3. Clarity of stated objectives and anticipated results;
   4. The appropriateness and soundness of the research design, including choice of data, methods of analysis, and other procedures;
   5. Demonstrated ability of research to be conducted in the timeframe established in this grant;
   6. If engaging affected communities, clarity, appropriateness, and feasibility of stated plan for engaging affected communities in research and/or dissemination processes;
   7. The reasonableness of estimated cost and time commitments in relation to anticipated results; and
   8. The qualifications and experience of personnel, including demonstrated familiarity with the literature and data to be used.

Award Info

IRP anticipates funding up to three projects, with total funding (including direct and indirect costs) up to $50,000 each. Applicants are encouraged to request that their home institution forego or charge minimal indirect costs.

Support is subject to the availability of funds. Nothing in this description of applications should be construed as committing IRP to dividing available funds among all qualified applicants.

Application Instructions

This is a two-stage selection process. All interested parties must submit a letter of interest. Selected applicants will receive feedback and will be invited to submit a full proposal. Note that only applicants who submit a letter of interest will be invited to submit a full proposal. Applicants cannot submit a proposal unless invited to do so.

Submit letter of interest by Friday, January 31, 2025 at:
https://irpwisc.formstack.com/forms/orr_extramural_large_grant_letter_of_intent

Fax submissions will not be accepted. Proposal receipt will be acknowledged.

The letter of interest must contain the following components as a single PDF file in the order listed:

1. A letter (not to exceed two pages) describing in detail:
   1. The issue(s) to be examined and their significance/importance;
   2. Research questions to be answered;
   3. Methodology proposed; and
   4. Anticipated results of the research, including their potential implications for public
2. Curriculum vitae for the principal i

Submit full proposal by Friday, March 28, 2025 at: https://irpwisc.formstack.com/forms/orr_extramural_large_grant_app

Fax submissions will not be accepted. Proposal receipt will be acknowledged.

The application must contain the following components as a single PDF file in the order listed:

1. A cover sheet giving the title of the proposed research, applicant’s name, date of PhD, and institutional affiliation with full address and telephone number, email address, and home
2. A one-page (double-spaced) abstract, describing research objectives, data, and
3. Description of the applicant’s proposed research, not to exceed eight double-spaced pages in 12- point, Times New Roman font with one-inch margins all around, exclusive of references or The proposal should carefully describe:
   1. the issue(s) to be examined and their significance/importance;
   2. research questions to be answered;
   3. methodology proposed;
   4. if engaging affected communities, how the project will do that, including any plans to compensate those who consult on the project; and
   5. anticipated results of the research, including their potential implications for public policy.
4. An itemized budget showing (as relevant) the researcher’s time, research assistant’s time, and people with lived experiences’ time spent on project consultation (if relevant), travel costs (other than those related to IRP-initiated meetings and events), computer services, supplies, and indirect costs if required. (Note that applicants are encouraged to request that their home institution forego or charge minimal indirect ) Grant awards will be issued in two or three increments corresponding to the IRP parent award and depending on the length of the project. As such, the itemized budget should be presented in the following periods:
   1. from July 1, 2025 to September 29, 2025;
   2. from September 30, 2025 to September 29, 2026; and
   3. from September 30, 2026 to June 30, 2027.
5. Curriculum vitae for all
6. A letter from the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs of the applicant’s institution confirming administrative approval of the proposal.
7. A timely plan for obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval or exemption for human subjects research. The University of Wisconsin–Madison will not execute subcontracts without documentation of IRB approval or exemption.

Contact

All inquiries, including questions on the application process, budget, and research issues, should be directed to irpapply@ssc.wisc.edu.

TIMELINE