Graduate Student Research Workshop at Howard University on Poverty and Economic Mobility

IRP co-hosts, with Howard University’s Center on Race and Wealth (CRW), a biannual week-long Graduate Student Research Workshop on Poverty and Economic Mobility for pre-dissertation proposal PhD students in the social sciences who are underrepresented in academia and are studying topics related to poverty or inequality in the United States. IRP is using the definition of underrepresented as outlined by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The workshop offers intensive training and mentorship to help attendees expand their skills, knowledge, and resources needed to prepare an effective dissertation proposal centered on policy-relevant, actionable research that will inform human services and economic mobility policies. The workshop is designed to meet the following goals for dissertators: (1) increase their knowledge about poverty research and the context of human services and economic mobility policies; (2) strengthen their interdisciplinary research skills; (3) increase the policy relevance of their research, and (4) improve diversity, equity and inclusion communication and translation skills for policy audiences.

Workshop participants will receive guidance on writing a dissertation proposal that will be eligible for consideration to receive one of four $5,000 student research awards to support dissertation work. Funding may be used to cover research support costs related to data collection, such as transcription or for conference registration or travel.

The workshop is held at Howard University in Washington, DC, and supported by funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Attendees are competitively selected in a biannual call for applications. IRP and Howard plan to host the workshop in late spring 2023 and 2025. Calls for these workshops will be released the prior fall.