Information & Democracy Research Grants

The Center on Media, Technology and Democracy seeks grant proposals from the Penn academic community for empirical research of the information ecosystem and its effects on democracy. 

The grant application is now open in InfoReady.

The 2025 Information & Democracy Research Grants – Request for Proposals

Proposals will be evaluated along the three following core criteria:

  1. Focus on the information ecosystem (such as traditional mass media, digital news, podcasters, influencers, social media, search engines, or generative AI), and its effects on democracy (such as through political speech, censorship, polarization, civic participation, voting and elections).
  2. Use of empirical research, using data and computational methods to advance the scientific understanding of the information ecosystem and its interactions with democracy. Application of new and emerging empirical methods, gathering and sharing new data sources, and the development of new open-source software, is encouraged but not required.
  3. Prioritization of impact, such that the research and other activities of the proposal have a direct and explicit relationship to improving the information ecosystem and supporting democracy.

We also encourage interdisciplinarity, dissemination activities, and community building, and welcome proposals that engage with the Center on Media, Technology and Democracy to advance these secondary goals:

  • Interdisciplinarity, especially applications involving collaboration from researchers from several affiliated schools at Penn. We strongly encourage having faculty as researchers or mentors from two different affiliated schools at Penn.
  • Dissemination Activities, including tool building and deployment, shorter articles, op-eds, blog posts, data visualizations, public events, workshops, and conference presentations.
  • Community Building, activities which brings together empirical scholars of the information ecosystem from across Penn and the broader academic community.

Guidelines – Please also consider the following guidelines:

    • Eligibility: Faculty, postdoctoral students, PhD students, research staff, and affiliated scholars from these Center-affiliated schools are eligible to apply (although not all collaborators must be affiliated with these schools). Please note that any non-faculty applying, such as postdoctoral and PhD students, must identify a faculty collaborator or mentor:
      • The School of Engineering and Applied Science
      • The Penn Carey Law School
      • The Annenberg School for Communication
      • The Annenberg Public Policy Center
      • The Wharton School
      • The School Arts and Sciences
      • The School of Social Policy and Practice 
    • Grant Amount: The typical grant range is $7,500-$15,000. Larger amounts may be considered for projects involving multiple Penn-affiliated researchers. 
    • Grant Length: The typical grant length will be between 12 to 15 months, starting on January 1, 2026, although longer and shorter grants may be considered. Unspent funds after the proposed grant period will be reclaimed by the Center, unless an extension is granted.
    • Limitations: Funding support will typically not cover researcher salaries, but may support data purchasing, data collection, data annotation, purchasing hardware and/or software, software engineering or deployment expenses, cloud computing, research assistants, behavioral experiments, and impact-oriented activities, such as events and dissemination.
    • Recognition: Projects that are selected for funding must provide recognition of the Information and Democracy Research Grants program on all publications, conference presentations, and may be asked to promote the research in coordination with the Center on Media, Technology, and Democracy.

Important Dates

Applications Open: September 15, 2025 

Applications Close: October 31, 2025

Award Announcement: December 8, 2025

Start of Award Delivery: January 1, 2026

Grant Execution Range: January 1, 2026 – April 1, 2027

 

Proposal Requirements

Proposals for the 2025 Information and Democracy Research Grants should be submitted as a PDF document which includes the following:

  • A 200-300 word proposal abstract.
  • A 500-1,000 word description of the proposed research, including the research questions and methodology.
  • A 300-500 word statement on the impact of the proposed work on the information ecosystem and democracy, including any impact-oriented activities.
  • A budget detailing projected costs and the total funding requested. The proposal must also mention any other sources of financial support.
  • A timeline of key project milestones and completion.

Proposal Submission

Please submit your grant proposal using the Grant Application in InfoReady.

 

Questions

Please reach out to Alex Engler (acengler@upenn.edu), Executive Director of the Center on Media, Technology and Democracy with any questions.