Ethics Institute Research Fellowship Grant Program

Up to $15,000 per grant/one year

Can be used for:
•    Student hourly
•    Conference travel
•    Journal publication fees
•    Participant incentives
•    Course buy-out (for the following semester)

Cannot be used for:
•    Indirect costs
•    Faculty salary support
•    Summer salary support

Please note that the funds need to be expended within a year of the award.

The awarded research fellows will engage in two meetings (one hour each) to collaborate with other fellows, once in the spring semester and once in the fall semester. The fall semester will highlight the progress of the work to a broader audience (MSU administration, Ethics Institute, donors, etc.). Awardees agree to provide regular updates throughout the year. A research manuscript or case study and a blog/news story/podcast highlighting the findings will be submitted.

Investigators at all levels are encouraged to apply. Grant recipients for each award must include at least one MSU faculty or academic staff member to serve as the lead investigator. Collaboration among faculty and interdisciplinary research is encouraged, as is the engagement of graduate student researchers.

Pilot projects should emphasize one or more of the following themes:

• Research ethics around marginalized populations
• Ethics and diversity
• Ethics and gender
• Ethics and social justice
• Ethics and democracy
• Ethics and the environment/sustainability
• Ethics and religious tolerance
• Ethics and health and well-being

Letters of intent (submitted via Qualtrics) should include the following:

1. Title of the research project, names of lead investigator and collaborators (collaboration is encouraged)
2. Alignment with ethical themes (see above) (1,000 characters with spaces)
3. Project aims/goals (1,000 characters with spaces)
4. Potential for impact (1,000 characters with spaces)
5. Timeline (document upload)
6. Budget & justification (document upload)

Please note that the application deadline for spring has passed.

Letter of Intent Deadline: Nov. 17, 2025
Notice of Invitation for Full Proposals: Dec. 12, 2025
Deadline for Full Proposals: Jan. 20, 2026 at 12 p.m.
Notice of Award: Feb. 6, 2026

A Full Proposal Submission will Include the Following:

• Names and affiliations of all investigators
• Brief description of the topical ethics issues and their significance
• Proposed research questions or objectives
• Methodological approach and research details
• Anticipated deliverable (e.g., grant proposal, paper, case study)
• References
• A full budget
• Project timeline

The full proposal should be no longer than 5 pages, 1” margins. The page limit excludes references, budget, and timeline.
 

Kune Park is an Assistant Professor - Tenure in the School of Social Work.

Project: Park’s project examines how race, ethnicity, and gender shape child welfare decision-making that can channel foster youth, disproportionately Black youth, into the juvenile legal system. Using vignettes, interviews, surveys, and bias assessments, the team aims to inform policy and practice that promote equitable decisions and reduce unnecessary referrals.

“Ethics Fellowship funding is critical, as it enables us to confront systemic inequities at the intersection of child welfare and juvenile justice, elevate the voices of professionals and caregivers who make decisions affecting young people’s lives, and generate evidence to promote more equitable and ethical decision-making in child welfare.” — Kune Park

Michelle T. Pham is an Assistant Professor in the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice in the College of Human Medicine, and Megh Marathe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Information and the Center for Bioethics and Social Justice.

Project: Through ethnographic interviews, the team investigates how Institutional Review Boards understand and address ethical risks in neural device research involving people with disabilities, an area with high promise but unique concerns about exploitation, risk, and informed consent. Findings will inform neuroethics governance and participant protections.

“Ethics Institute funding provides a crucial opportunity to analyze of what it means to do ethical human participant research with implantable neural devices, particularly the ways in which Institutional Review Boards address ethical challenges in this research space.” — Michelle Pham

Courtney E. Venker is a licensed and certified speech-language pathologist and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders. She is also the director of the Lingo Lab, which is located in the Oyer Speech and Hearing Building on campus.

Project: Venker’s team will code 100+ children’s books about autism to identify patterns in how friendship is portrayed often through neurotypical lenses and partner with autistic collaborators to develop ethically grounded storytelling recommendations for educators and authors.

“It is such an honor to have received an Ethics Research Fellow grant. This funding is important because it will allow us to examine how friendship is depicted in children's books about autism—a sub-genre of children's literature that is growing at an exponential rate. Though some children's books about autism may feature balanced and authentic autistic friendships, others may feature uneven friendship dynamics and encourage autistic characters to ’cover up’ their true selves to be eligible as a friend. It is important to understand the range of messages young readers of children's books about autism may receive, as some may be more helpful than others. Findings will inform recommendations for more inclusive and ethically grounded storytelling and educational practices.” — Courtney Venker