National Research Center for Promoting Work and Strong Families

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) anticipates soliciting applications for a National Research Center for Promoting Work and Strong Families. The Center aims to improve the effectiveness of federal and state policies that promote the dignity of work, economic self-sufficiency, and family stability through marriage, responsible fatherhood, child care, and reduced dependency on public assistance. The Center will support rigorous, policy-relevant research and build stronger connections between researchers and policymakers in human services programs. The Center will carry out three core activities to achieve its goals: Fellowship program: Support in-residence fellows placed within ACF and other HHS offices to provide policy-relevant research expertise on work, earnings, family stability, child care, and human services programs. Extramural research grants: Oversee a competitive grant program to fund timely, actionable research aligned with ACF priorities. These priorities include: promoting the dignity of work, economic self-sufficiency, and family stability. Knowledge building and communication: Host in-person and virtual events. Produce policy-focused materials to make sure that research findings are accessible and actionable for federal, state, tribal, and local policymakers. The Center will emphasize research that promotes the dignity of work as a means to economic self-sufficiency and strong and stable families. This research will ideally help identify redundancies across government welfare programs and make sure that taxpayer dollars are used efficiently to help individuals and families rely less on public assistance. Activities must align with ACF’s statutory authorities and may not support diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEI/DEIA) activities, consistent with General Policies in this NOFO. ACF anticipates making one cooperative agreement award for a five-year project period. Activities must align with the statutory authorities supporting this NOFO. The recipient must be able to show, and ACF must be able to monitor, that funds appropriated were spent on activities that can be directly attributed to those required and allowed by each funding source.