Disability Determination Small Grant Program

The grant isn’t really that small; it’s $10,000.

Policy Research, Inc (PRI) is pleased to announce a new, federally-funded stipend program for graduate-level research – the Disability Determination Process (DDP) Small Grant Program. This one-year stipend program will allow graduate students to conduct supervised independent research on improving disability determination processes. The program is directed by Policy Research, Inc. (PRI) of Delmar, NY, and is 100% funded through a $300,000 grant from the Social Security Administration (SSA) (#IDD11000001). See SSA Commissioner Astrue’s Press Release that mentions this program here: http://www.socialsecurity.gov/pressoffice/pr/ss-expands-compassionate-allowances.html.

This grant program will award $10,000 stipends to graduate students to conduct research on improving disability determination processes. For example, the disability determination process used for SSA’s two disability programs – Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) – is extensive and complex, and members of the public with health problems and economic hardships often find it difficult to navigate this process. PRI hopes to improve the efficiency and reduce the complexity of disability determination processes by facilitating innovative research through stipends to a broad spectrum of graduate students and by allowing those students to access technical information on SSA disability program operations from disability experts. In exchange, PRI expects students to produce a thesis or written project relevant to disability programs by December 31, 2012.

PRI will accept applications for the first cycle of stipends until November 15, 2011. PRI will award stipends on or about December 15, 2011, and the stipends will cover the period January 2012 – December 2012. Please see attached Application materials and for more information visit http://www.policyresearchinc.org/projects/ddp_grant.shtml.

You can also contact PRI at ddp AT policyresearchinc DOT org with any questions. Thank you!

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