CFP: The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Research Consortium

The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society, with the very generous support from the John Templeton Foundation, welcomes proposals for the PPE Research Consortium initiative.  

Our aim is to support projects that rely on mobilizing a blend of the insights and tools of philosophy, political science, and economics (each broadly construed) to understand the world in which we live.   

The Consortium will be awarding grants ranging from $10,000 to $150,000 and lasting anywhere from 6 months to 2.5 years. The support is specifically for teams of two or more scholars working together.  The two-step application process (see below) will allow ‘individuals in search of a team’ and ‘teams in search of additional members’ to submit short, initial proposals that we will use to identify possible matches. 

We will support excellent PPE research whatever the focus, but we especially invite work that falls within the following Key Areas:   

• Markets, Freedom, and the Role of Government 
• Justice, Equality, and Social Welfare 
• Democracy, Governance, and Political Power 
• Globalization, Sovereignty, and Immigration 
• Environmental Quality and The Common Good 
• Public Health, Well-being, and Education 
• Technology and the Future 
• Human Rights, Law, and Civic Norms 

If your project does not fit within one of these eight Areas, the application form allows for an “Other” option, where you may add your own 10-word categorization.

Our grants might be used for summer stipends, course relief, data collection, or workshops, though we welcome requests for whatever (within the budget) will advance the project being proposed. Proposals should identify specific outputs, e.g., articles, books, anthologies (whether for academics, or policy makers, or the general public), pedagogical materials, podcasts, or Substack contributions. Whatever the outputs, they must reflect the benefits of working as a team, though they need not be co-authored or co-produced.   

There are two stages to the application process: 

• Stage One is to submit a brief proposal describing the project’s nature and value, the anticipated outputs, and the kind of support that applicants would expect from their home institution and hope for from the PPE Consortium.    The deadline for Stage 1 is January 5, 2026.

• Stage Two, for those whose initial brief proposals are selected, is to submit a full team proposal, with details about the work plan, schedule, budget, and justification for the requested support.    The deadline for Stage 2 is March 1, 2026.

All  awards  will be for teams working together on a common topic, issue, or question. Yet we will consider Stage One proposals from ‘individuals in search of a team,’ as well as ‘teams in search of additional members.’ In these cases, at Stage One, individual applicants will be asked to identify the training, skills, and interests they would bring to a team, while team applicants will be asked to identify the sorts of training, skills, and interests that would be useful to their project. In the case of strong ‘in search of’ proposals, we will work with them to build a team either (i) with others who have submitted strong individuals “looking for a team” proposals, or (ii) with people in PPE who would be good partners in the identified research project.  

All grants will be awarded with the expectation that at least one PI (or co-PI) will attend a PPE Research Consortium workshop held in conjunction with the PPE Society’s Annual November Conference in New Orleans during or at the end of the funded project. (There will be two such workshops, one in 2026, one in 2027.)