Enterprise Solutions to Poverty

The SEVEN Fund is a virtual nonprofit entity run by entrepreneurs whose strategy is to markedly increase the rate of innovation and diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. SEVEN believes that such solutions already exist but are not sufficiently studied, analyzed, and exhibited as examples.

The SEVEN Fund has published its annual open "Enterprise-based Solutions to Poverty" Request for Proposals. The competition will award up to two research grants of up to $100,000 each to support innovative original research in enterprise solutions to poverty.

The RFP has four goals: 1) to expand scientific inquiry to include disciplines fundamental to a deep understanding of entrepreneurship and economic development currently unsupported by conventional grant sources; 2) to forge and maintain useful collaborations between researchers and on-the-ground actors of enterprise-based solutions to poverty; 3) to provide the public with a deeper understanding of this area and its potential implications; and 4) to find, research, and analyze role-model entrepreneurs and companies whose lesson may inspire others.

Amount: $100,000

Date due: October 15, 2010

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Canada Conference Grant Program

he Canada Conference Grant Program supports conferences that address important and timely issues about Canada, its relationship with the United States, and its international affairs. The Conference Grant is designed to assist an institution in holding a conference and publishing the resulting papers and proceedings in a scholarly fashion. We welcome conferences that engage local government representatives, NGOs, the business sector, students and the general public as well as promote linkages with Canadian academics and institutions.

The Conference Grant program is particularly interested in projects that have policy relevance for Canada and Canada-U.S. relations. Topics that are highly relevant to Canada-U.S. relations include smart and secure borders; North American economic competitiveness; regulatory cooperation; Canada-U.S. trade and investment partnership; energy security and sustainability; environmental sustainability; emergency planning and management; Canada-U.S. security and defense cooperation; Canada in Afghanistan; global health policy; and changing demographics in North America. We strongly encourage projects that include collaboration with researchers at Canadian institutions.

Amount: $15,000

Date due: June 30, 2010

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Program Enhancement Grant (Canada)

The Program Enhancement Grant is designed to encourage scholarly inquiry and multidisciplinary professional academic activities that contribute to the development or expansion of a program dedicated to the study of Canada or Canada-U.S. relations. We are particularly interested in innovative projects that promote awareness among students and the public about Canada and Canada-U.S. relations. We strongly encourage programs that foster student mobility (exchanges, study tours, internships, scholarships) to Canada and that promote institutional linkages and research collaboration in priority areas with Canadian institutions.

Institutions must demonstrate their funding support for the program and that they are bringing innovative ideas to the program.

Grants are provided to help defray only direct costs related to professional activities initiated by the institution. These costs include travel, honoraria, research and promotion materials, printing, website development, student mobility, linkages and research collaboration with Canadian universities, and faculty and course development. Faculty and student first-time membership fees for the Association for Canadian Studies in the United States or a Canadian academic association are allowable budget items.

Amount: $18,000

Date due: June 15, 2010

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Research Grant Program (Canada)

The Research Grant Program promotes research that contributes to a better knowledge and understanding of Canada, its relationship with the United States, and its international affairs. The grant is designed to assist individual scholars, or a team of scholars, in writing an article-length manuscript of publishable quality and reporting their findings in a scholarly publication and at scholarly conferences, thus contributing to the development of expertise on Canada in the United States. We welcome efforts to integrate the research findings into the applicant's teaching load.

The program is particularly interested in projects that have policy relevance for Canada and Canada-U.S. relations. Topics that are highly relevant to Canada-U.S. relations include smart and secure borders; North American economic competitiveness; regulatory cooperation; Canada-U.S. trade and investment partnership; energy security and sustainability; environmental sustainability; emergency planning and management; Canada-U.S. security and defense cooperation; Canada in Afghanistan; global health policy; and changing demographics in North America. We strongly encourage projects that include collaboration with researchers at Canadian institutions.

Amount: $15,000 - $20,000

Date due: November 1, 2010

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Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism Initiative Grants

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism (NIAAA) Program Project Initiativeprovides leadership in conducting and fostering interdisciplinary research on a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to: the nature, causes, consequences, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of alcohol abuse and alcoholism; and in developing new topics, approaches and methodologies to pursue these areas of research.

Amount: $500,000

Date due: December 2, 2010 (Proposal); November 2, 2010 (Letter of Intent)

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Social Network Analysis and Health (NIH)

Social networks are social structures comprised of nodes, which can be individuals, organizations, or even societies. In a social network, nodes are tied to each other based on a type of social relationship, such as friendship, kinship, sexual contact, or economic exchange. Social network analysis (SNA) is the measuring, mapping, analyzing, and interpretation of social network structures, the ties between nodes, and the flows that occur within and across networks. Information, disease pathogens, ideas, money, and many other things can flow across networks. The goal of this funding announcement is to advance the science of SNA in ways that will enhance its utility for understanding and addressing public health issues. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) calls for research with the potential to advance and expand the utility of SNA and methods in studies of health and disease. This FOA is not intended to encourage proposals on the development of intervention strategies that operate on social networks, but rather to strengthen basic science knowledge on which intervention strategies may later be based.

Social network analysis allows researchers to describe, integrate, and analyze spatial, mathematical, and substantive dimensions of the social structures formed as a result of ties formed between persons, organizations, or other types of nodes. Researchers can represent networks graphically, locate them spatially, and describe and analyze their properties mathematically. These spatial and mathematical relations (i.e., “networks”) can then be related to the content and quality of interpersonal ties, individual or group phenotypes and behaviors, and the well-being and dynamics of groups and communities. SNA can be used to yield more meaningful measures of social integration in studies focusing on individual outcomes and to investigate the social dynamics underlying community function and population health. SNA can be used to study the transmission of viral infections, behaviors, attitudes, information, or the diffusion of medical practices.

Date due: May 3, 2010 (Letter of intent); June 3, 2010 (Proposal)

Amount: varies

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How Housing Matters to Families Grants

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is accepting research proposals to explore how housing matters to children, families, and communities.

Grant proposals are invited for the second round of research awards under the foundation's $25 million How Housing Matters to Communities and Families initiative. The initiative is based on the premise that stable, affordable housing may be an essential platform that promotes positive outcomes in education, employment, and physical health by helping to ensure a greater return from other social and public investments.

In the 2010 competition, the foundation seeks to expand further the body of empirical evidence on the difference that living in decent and affordable housing makes in the lives of children, their families, and communities, with a special emphasis on how such evidence can be put to use by decision-makers to strengthen policies and programs.

Amount: Varies

Date due: March 22, 2010

For more information, click here.