BITSS Catalysts are academic faculty, graduate students, and other researchers across the quantitative social sciences—including economics, political science, and psychology— who are energized to improve standards of transparency, reproducibility, and ethics in research through infrastructure development, training, and advocacy.  While the past two decades have seen exciting advancements in the adoption and effective use of open science tools, we have a long way to go before transparency and reproducibility are the norm. The goal of this program is to connect and empower individuals to make changes in their own classrooms, institutions, and networks, thereby catalyzing large-scale and durable change.

This call for proposals is to join the Catalyst program and to develop a workshop, training, curricula, guidelines, or other open science materials. Examples of suggested activities that the Catalyst program will fund include:

• Training students/colleagues on research transparency and reproducibility 
• Integrating research transparency topics into existing curricula/courses, seminars, and workshops
• Conducting meta-research
• Pre-registering your studies
• Writing and publishing Pre-Analysis Plans
• Conducting computational reproductions, ideally logging them in the Social Science Reproduction Platform!
• Making your study materials, data, and code publicly available
• Advocating for better standards and policies around transparency, reproducibility, and ethics in research

More information about the proposal requirements are available in the application form. Proposals will be evaluated by the BITSS committee for innovation, feasibility, alignment with the program goals, and potential impact. Here is a summary of the scope:

• This call for proposals is international in scope.
• Applicants may apply as an individual, or as a consortium of researchers. There are no organizational or career stage requirements.
• Proposed projects should take place between January 1, 2026 - June 30, 2026. Final reports will be due by August 31, 2026. 
• Typical project awards are from $1,000 - $3,000 USD. Please begin the application form for more information about the funding available and budget guidance. 
• All materials (including curricula, agendas, and training slides) must be made publicly available upon conclusion of the project.

To see information about previously funded Catalyst grants, please see the BITSS website.

Project proposals are due on Tuesday, September 30, 2025. Selected Catalysts will be notified by November 1, 2025. If you have any questions about the proposal form, please contact jweech@berkeley.edu.

A minimum of $50,000 will be available to alumni of the CEGA fellowship network and all PhD Students and Faculty Affiliates at CEGA-Affiliated campuses. We offer two types of awards to support original research in East Africa related to the topics above:

(1) travel grants up to $5,000 for scoping and/or short-term fieldwork;

(2) seed grants up to $20,000 for extensive, longer-term projects.

The Pharo Foundation has generously provided funds to support original research relevant to Somaliland and Western Ethiopia. Preference will be given to proposals examining research ideas that directly connect to existing Pharo Foundation programs or initiatives. Specifically, CEGA and the Pharo Foundation are eager to support evaluations examining the following:

1. Rainwater harvesting and water access in Somaliland
2. Vocational skills training in Somaliland and Ethiopia
3. Farmer outgrower programs for crop processing in Ethiopia
4. Educational technology in East Africa
5. Workforce skills transformation in the context of AI in East Africa

Deadline: August 24, 2025 at 11:59 PM Pacific Time

Eligibility: Alumni of the CEGA fellowship program, doctoral students, and CEGA Faculty Affiliates can apply. We encourage collaborative proposals across the three eligibility groups as well. For doctoral students and fellows, each application must include a nomination from a CEGA faculty affiliate sponsor. The nomination must be emailed to Sam Bordia (bordia@berkeley.edu) by the submission deadline (simply stating, "I have reviewed the proposed research and agree to nominate the applicant for this award" is adequate). 

Application Process: Please complete the Application Form. Applications must include a proposal describing the research (no more than 2 pages) and a budget. All materials must be submitted in a single PDF file. 

Please email Sam Bordia (bordia@berkeley.edu) with any inquiries.