Faculty Research Grants

The Institute supports faculty research by providing faculty research grants in ethics.  These grants support projects that explore ethical issues from a range of methodological perspectives.

About the Grant

These grants are open to all faculty doing research and teaching that seeks to advance the mission of the Institute.  These grants can be used in a variety of ways: to conduct qualitative or quantitative research, enhance an already existing course or create a new course; undertake professional development in an ethics-related area; present a paper at a conference or symposium; collaborate with co-authors; or work with students.

Projects may take place either off-campus or in Hanover. Faculty applying for these grants must include a chart string where the funds will be deposited.  Faculty may submit grant applications for up to $3,000 to support their research.  The Institute reviews these grant requests on a rolling basis and the award (which may be less than the amount requested) depends on how the project advances the mission of the Institute as well as the availability of funds.  

 

Application Instructions

Application consists of the following:

  • A detailed description of the proposed research project and how this project will advance the mission of the Institute (Ethics Institute Mission)
  • In order to ensure a timely review of your application, faculty should apply for these grants at least two months prior to when the funds will be used. 
  • A budget that explains how the funds will be used. Items covered could include travel, books, surveys, student assistance, fees for translators.  Items generally not covered include the purchase of equipment (e.g., computers, cameras, iPods).

Submit an application.

Recent Grant Recipient Awards

Does Conjoint Analysis Mitigate Social Desirability Bias?

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Yusaku Horiuchi

Yusaku Horiuchi, Professor of Government and Mitsui Professor of Japanese Studies, Dartmouth College

 

Yusaku Horiuchi, Zach Markovich, and Teppei Yamamoto. 2021. "Does Conjoint Analysis Mitigate Social Desirability Bias?" Political Analysis, First View. https://doi.org/10.1017/pan.2021.30. Published Online: September 15, 2021

How can we elicit honest responses in surveys? Conjoint analysis has become a popular tool to address social desirability bias (SDB), or systematic survey misreporting on sensitive topics. However, there has been no direct evidence showing its suitability for this purpose. We propose a novel experimental design to identify conjoint analysis's ability to mitigate SDB. Specifically, we compare a standard, fully randomized conjoint design against a partially randomized design where only the sensitive attribute is varied between the two profiles in each task. We also include a control condition to remove confounding due to the increased attention to the varying attribute under the partially randomized design. We implement this empirical strategy in two studies on attitudes about environmental conservation and preferences about congressional candidates. In both studies, our estimates indicate that the fully randomized conjoint design could reduce SDB for the average marginal component effect (AMCE) of the sensitive attribute by about two-thirds of the AMCE itself. Although encouraging, we caution that our results are exploratory and exhibit some sensitivity to alternative model specifications, suggesting the need for additional confirmatory evidence based on the proposed design.

*Zach Markovich is a Class of 2015 (QSS and GOVT double major).

How to disseminate findings on the long-term effects of past trauma: A collaborative ethics project 


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Glorieuse Uwizeye

Glorieuse Uwizeye, Ph.D. (PI) is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dartmouth Society of Fellows and based in the Department of Anthropology.

Interdisciplinary workshop with a group of scholars working at the intersection of ethics, anthropology, and public health. Using our own research on adult children of genocide survivors in Rwanda as a case study, we will develop an ethical protocol to disseminate research findings to study participants.  Travel to Rwanda for three purposes: (i) to share findings with study participants using our newly developed protocol; (ii) to invite study participants to provide feedback to improve the protocol; and, (iii) to initiate community participatory research co-designed and implemented with our target population. Our intent is to publish a manuscript that draws attention to the ethical challenges of communicating epigenetic health results and to develop guidelines for best professional practices.

Following the dissemination of the findings to the study population, we plan to take these ethical efforts further by initiating a community-based participatory research project to understand the longer term impacts of prenatal genocide exposure on individual health and development. This approach is empowering to the study population in the sense that it gives them a genuine voice in research being done with them and for them (7). The approach also has the potential to address research questions that matter most to study participants and lead to interventions with higher potential for success given this equitable form of involvement of all parties. During the dissemination meeting we will identify members of our study population that we can collaborate with on this project and collect initial research project ideas. Though this is not a novel approach, this will be the first time that this approach will have been used among this underserved population, in particular individuals born of genocidal rape. The results of this community-based participatory research meeting will form the basis of our future collaborative research with this population.