Internal Title Fostering International Research on Women in Public Service | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

This grant opportunity, titled Internal Title Fostering International Research on Women in Public Service, is part of the Women in Public Service Project (WPSP), a U.S. Department of State initiative launched in 2011 to help grow a new generation of women leaders prepared to serve in government and public leadership roles. The central purpose of the funding is to support evidence-based, policy-relevant research that can be put to practical use by decision makers and program designers who are trying to increase the number of women entering public service, staying in it, and moving into leadership. The State Department highlights that rigorous research in this area, including strong statistical and analytical work, is still limited, and this call is meant to help fill that gap with credible, actionable findings.

The program will fund research projects totaling $60,000 overall, with individual awards ranging from $5,000 up to a $60,000 ceiling, and an expected six awards. While cost sharing is not required, it is encouraged. The opportunity is listed as a discretionary grant under an education-related funding activity category (CFDA 19.700, Department of State Assistance), and it was administered under the Bureau of African Affairs. The announcement was originally posted in December 2011, with an application deadline of February 15, 2012 (this listing is archived, but the summary reflects what the call required at the time).

A defining requirement is that proposals must come from international research teams working across at least two countries, and the team must include at least one member from an ESF-eligible country (a large list spanning all countries in Africa and many countries across East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, the Near East, South and Central Asia, and the Western Hemisphere). Interdisciplinary approaches are explicitly encouraged, reflecting an interest in combining methods and perspectives from fields like political science, public administration, economics, sociology, gender studies, and data science. In addition to being international, applicants are expected to have a demonstrated track record of successfully completed, peer-reviewed research, signaling that the program is looking for teams with proven capacity to deliver credible results on a relatively small, targeted budget.

In terms of what the research should focus on, the call is intentionally broad but clearly oriented toward questions that can inform policy and programs. Priority topics include the impacts of women participating in public service (for example, how governance processes or outcomes change when women are represented, and what may be lost when they are not), the obstacles that block women from rising and thriving in public institutions, and the effectiveness of interventions meant to address those obstacles. The solicitation also emphasizes measurement: projects that can evaluate what actually works to attract young women into public service, and what factors drive retention and advancement, are especially aligned with the program goals. Overall, the program is not asking for research purely for academic interest; it is asking for research designed to produce practical insights that can be translated into better institutional decisions and better-designed leadership pipelines.

The application package requirements are fairly standard for a federal research grant but with some program-specific expectations. Proposals need to identify the researchers and their institutions, provide a project description that lays out the research plan, the investigators professional vision, likely outcomes, and intended audiences, and include a timeline. Applicants must attach biographical sketches for each researcher (limited to two pages each), propose a budget including direct and indirect costs, and describe any cost sharing if applicable. Each proposal must also include a brief evaluation plan, and importantly, it must explain how results will be shared, including dissemination strategies such as social media and connections to the Women in Public Service Project website (womeninpublicservice.org). Submissions were required through Grants.gov, which means organizations needed to be registered and an Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) had to complete and submit the final application package.

Finally, the selection process is described as a merit review conducted by an ad hoc panel of at least five reviewers drawn from the Department of State, non-competing academic institutions, and NGOs with relevant expertise in advancing women in public service. Reviewers evaluate proposals on two main dimensions: intellectual merit (importance of the research question, qualifications of the team, originality, quality and feasibility of the design, and access to needed resources) and broader impacts (contributions to learning and participation, inclusion of underrepresented groups beyond gender, mentoring or training components such as involving graduate students, strengthening networks and partnerships, and the breadth and usefulness of dissemination for both public understanding and policy decisions). The program officer would consider panel input and make recommendations, while final decisions were made at a senior level within the Department of State. Contact for program content was listed as Program Officer Lora Berg (BergLJ@state.gov), with Grants.gov support available through its help center for submission or technical issues.

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