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Greetings,

 

We are excited to share this funding opportunity from Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF). TWCF will fund planning grants to advance the knowledge base for researchers seeking to measure and map polarization between and within societies and cultures globally. More information about the award can be found in the synopsis and links below. As a reminder, our research development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.

 

Templeton World Charity Foundation Listening and Learning in a Polarized World (LLPW) Planning Grants

  • OSP Initial Proposal Deadline: March 2, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET
    Departments or areas may require additional time for proposal review and submission. Please discuss a timeline with your departmental or FORA grants administrator.
  • Sponsor Initial Proposal Deadline: March 6, 2026
  • Sponsor Revised Proposal Deadline, if selected: April 2026
  • Award Amount: $100,000 for 6-9 month planning project
    The Foundation will approve a budget component for overhead of no more than 15% within the budget of $100,000.
 

Program Overview

 

Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) launched Listening and Learning in a Polarized World (LLPW) to support research for new scientific discoveries that can help humans flourish in a world confronted with increasing polarization. Although polarization is widely acknowledged, scientific understanding of its fundamental drivers, manifestation, and potential antidotes remains fragmented and insufficient, especially outside of Western contexts. There is a lack of robust, comparable data across cultures and innovative frameworks, and a limited evidence base for what effective depolarization looks like in practice. The LLPW initial planning grant opportunity is a strategic investment in the foundational research required to map the complex ecosystem of polarization and depolarization globally. This initial call for proposals will fund a planning period of 6-9 months to develop a proposal and network to carry out a project aimed at understanding, or measuring and mapping polarization between and within societies and cultures in a global context. Projects should start by June 1, 2026. Those selected for a planning grant will each be eligible to apply for a second round of funding of up to USD $2.5 million to carry out the larger mapping project proposed in the planning grant.

 

Priority Areas

  • Planning activities that will enable future research to:
    • Develop novel, multi-dimensional models, frameworks, and metrics for polarization (or depolarization) that are valid across different cultural and political contexts. 
    • Design methodologies to systematically map polarization to identify key leverage points and emerging patterns of depolarization, at any scale (e.g., communities, between groups, and across nations).
    • Build the necessary collaborative partnerships to explore mechanisms that drive polarization (e.g., social media algorithms, economic inequality, identity threats) and the factors that foster flourishing and cohesion (e.g., cross-group contact, shared narratives, institutional trust), and that establish the governance, data-sharing, and communication infrastructure, etc to allow for a lasting, equitable international consortium dedicated to the project.
 

Eligibility Criteria

  • Proposals must be a plan for global study with network partners based in different countries. 
  • Applicants must commit to preregistering the experiments in the mapping study. 
  • Applicants with a past or current TWCF grant larger than $260,000 and who plan to build their LLPW proposal from that work will be required to provide matching funding.
  • Lead organization must be a university, research institution, or a non-profit organization.
  • An individual can only be involved in a maximum of three (3) submitted proposals.
  • Must abide by TWCF's Open Access policy. 
 

Application Materials

  • Project Description of no more than 2500 words (excluding references).
    • If applicable, tables, graphs and figures should be uploaded as a single pdf document.
    • Proposals should be written for an audience with a general background in science, but not necessarily expertise in the specific area of the application. TWCF advises applicants to define specialist terms and avoid using jargon.
  • TWCF highly encourages:
    • Engagement with varied stakeholders such as practitioners, policy makers, and community leaders.
    • Interdisciplinary approaches.
    • Innovative dissemination plans.
    • Robust capacity building plans.
  • A Budget is required to help TWCF decide whether the estimated expenses are both reasonable and necessary for the project. Budgets can be broken down into:
    • Personnel.
    • Operational Research Costs.
    • Travel and Lodging. Travel costs for team members not employed by the Lead Organization cannot exceed 10% of the total budget. 
    • Events.
    • Overhead (within the budget of $100,000 and not to exceed 15%).
  • Team members information (template provided).
  • CVs.
  • Letters of Support for individuals who are not employed by the lead organization.
 

Selection Criteria

  • Successful proposals will demonstrate:
    • A clear articulation of model/mechanism/factor of polarization or depolarization, or research questions to be explored, and possible measurements.
    • Clear description of the aims and activities of the planning period.
    • Importance of the proposed question(s) and potential impact.
    • Clear articulation of collaboration plans & mechanisms.
    • Strong explanation of capacity for success. 
    • Innovation and creative thinking.
    • Adherence to best practices in open science. 

 

Additional Information and Resources

 
Submit a planning grant application in the TWCF web portal. Finalists will be notified in early April 2026 to submit a revised planning proposal later in April 2026. The earliest start date for projects is June 1, 2026. 
 
Those selected for the planning grant will be eligible to apply for a second round of funding, due by January 15, 2027, to carry out the larger mapping project proposed in the planning grant. 

 

Find detailed information in the Application Guidance Document and review FAQs.

 

View grants previously made by the Listening and Learning in a Polarized World program.

 

Applicants may also be interested in TWCF's Global Call for Ideas, a request for submissions of emerging topics that will form the basis of new funding opportunities. Responses to this call are accepted through February 13, 2026.

 

Questions from FAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to research_development@fas.harvard.edu.
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