Sidney A. Fine Grant for Research on the Analysis of Work

This award is not open for the 2026 nomination cycle

The Sidney A. Fine Grant supports research on analytical approaches for describing and understanding work (e.g., competency modeling, job analysis, work analysis, critical incidents). The grant encourages research in diverse formats, including bibliographic, empirical, methodological, model development, and theoretical investigations. The research may explore work analysis applications in a variety of areas, including employee selection, skills-based hiring, job design, career development, career paths, or talent architecture. Special emphasis is given to research that advances work analysis methodologies that tackle the evolving dynamics of work (e.g., gig economy, virtual work), the use of emerging technology (such as machine learning, natural language processing, and AI), and/or legal frameworks (such as pay equity laws).

The maximum size of the grant is $7,500.

General Procedures and Policies

The grant submission package must include a grant proposal (see formatting guidelines below).

The principal investigator of the project must be a SIOP member (which includes Student Members) and must submit the research proposal. Proposals submitted with a Student as the principal investigator must include a letter of endorsement from a SIOP professional member.

To encourage wide participation and a large variety of individuals and institutions involved in the program, an individual can only be involved in one proposal per review cycle per grant. In addition, individuals who received a Fine Grant within the last two years are ineligible. Before submitting a grant proposal, check with each of your co-authors to ensure that neither of these requirements are being violated.

When submitting application materials, applicants will also be asked if they are being investigated, or have been found responsible, for misconduct prohibited in SIOP’s Anti-Harassment Policy and to provide a brief explanation if this is the case.

Guidelines for Proposal Budgets

The explicit policy of the Fine Grant Program is that grant funds may not be used for overhead or indirect costs. In the committee’s experience, most universities will waive overhead and indirect costs under two circumstances: (a) the grant is relatively modest in size (e.g., under $10,000), and/or (b) the awarding institution (i.e., SIOP Foundation) does not allow it. If the above statement disallowing funds to be used for overhead is insufficient, a Chair of the Awards Committee will provide additional documentation and evidence explicitly recognizing this policy.

The Fine Grant can be used in conjunction with other funding for a larger-scale project. In this case, the proposal should describe the scope of the entire project, the entire budget, and the portion of the budget for which SIOP award money will be spent.

In addition, grant funds should not be used to pay for ancillary costs related to the project (i.e., publication or presentations at conferences, such as open access and registration/ travel costs).

Format of Proposals

The proposal should adhere to APA formatting guidelines and should include the following sections:

• Title Page (include the names of all authors of the grant proposal)
• Abstract
• Literature review and rationale for the project
• Method —including information about the sample, measures, data collection strategies, and analytical strategies
• Implications of the findings or conclusions for research and practice
• References, Tables/Figures and Appendices
• Project plan, defined deliverables, and budget

Proposals should not exceed 10 pages of text (this does not include: title page, abstract, references, tables and figures, and appendices). The proposal should be double spaced and use a 12-point font and 1” margins. The proposal must be a single document, either a Word document or a .pdf file.

If applicable, the names of all authors of the grant proposal must be entered during the online nomination/application process. Please ensure that all participants in your nomination have current information in their siop.org profiles. All non-members should create an account at siop.org (creating accounts is not equivalent to applying for membership)

All proposals need to certify, by signature or other means, that the research will be carried out in compliance with ethical standards regarding the treatment of human subjects (e.g., institutional review board or signed statement that the research adheres to the accepted professional standards regarding the treatment of human subjects).

Evaluation Criteria

At least three members of the Grant Subcommittee will evaluate each grant proposal on the following criteria:

• Has a sound technical or scientific base
• Demonstrate innovation and excellence
• Has the potential for advancing the understanding of work and/or methods of analyzing work
• Is feasible and possible to complete within 2 years of the award date
• Has a clearly defined project plan, defined deliverables, and budget

Administrative Procedures

The Awards Subcommittee will review and administer the grant. The subcommittee reserves the right to recommend that the award be withheld if a suitable candidate does not apply.

Although a student can apply for multiple SIOP grants and scholarships, they cannot win multiple awards that fund the same project in the same year. Additionally, a student cannot be funded on multiple scholarships in the same year. If a project is recommended to receive two awards, the Awards Chair for grants and scholarships will make the determination of which award the individual will receive. If an individual is recommended to receive a scholarship by two different subcommittees, the Awards Chair for grants and scholarships will make the determination of which award the individual will receive.

Funds will be distributed to the recipient in a single payment in January following the submission deadline.

Deliverables

All grant recipients will be required to deliver a final report to the SIOP office within 2 years of the date of the award. An abstract of the research will be placed on the SIOP website.

Recipients are encouraged to submit the results of their research for presentation at SIOP’s annual conference.

Recipients should acknowledge funding from the SIOP Foundation in any presentations or publications resulting from the grant-funded research.