Collaborative Announces New Gun Violence Research Awards for Early Scholars

The National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research today announced funding for seven new research projects examining gun violence topics including urban gun violence, firearm suicide, and the use of guns in crime.

This round of grantmaking includes four postdoctoral and three dissertation awards, totaling $325,000 in funding.

The new grants mark the collaborative’s fourth round of grantmaking, bringing the total funding for gun violence research to $22 million across 51 research projects.

One of the collaborative's goals is to broaden the gun policy research field. These seven training awards will increase the number of young scholars supported to 18, an important investment in the next generation of firearm violence prevention researchers.

The funded research projects will

• assess the spillover effects of drug markets on neighborhood gun violence
• examine whether neighborhood heat exposure affects gun violence risk
• identify age-graded risk factors for gun violence among high-risk youth
• evaluate a community-based violence prevention program in Kansas City, Missouri
• estimate how frequently and under what circumstances individuals commit suicide during encounters with police
• develop a measure of gun desirability and assess how this measure is affected by different factors
• analyze patterns in the use of guns to commit crimes in the Deep South.

In this round the collaborative sought one-year proposals for research that would provide the public and policymakers with evidence to support development of fair and effective gun policies. Funding was available for dissertation and postdoctoral fellowships, and for the first time awards were open to groups that wished to fund a post-doctoral fellow, even if that person had not been hired.

Proposals were reviewed for their scientific rigor and relevance to firearm violence reduction in the United States. Funding decisions were made by the collaborative's Research Advisory Committee, led by chair Frank M. Clark.

The Collaborative is funded through philanthropic donations and is administered by the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. It was seeded with a $20 million gift from Arnold Ventures and has been supported by contributions from other organizations, including Wells Fargo, Missouri Foundation for Health, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

Read the full details on the funded projects »