SSE is aware that historical and modern-day cultural biases as well as lack of diversity in an applicant pool may lead to biases in the allocation of grants, prizes, and awards. Beginning with the 2020 Graduate Research Excellence Grant competitions, SSE will request voluntary demographic information from award applicants in an effort to address bias and promote equity in awarding across multiple axes of diversity. 

IMPORTANTLY:

1. Answering demographic questions is voluntary — each question includes an option not to answer and applicants may choose to answer as many or as few questions as they wish.
2. Information on identity will NOT be available to the evaluation committee during the first step of the evaluation process—the scoring and ranking of application materials.
3. These data will be a tool to assess the diversity of overall applicant pools and address differences between the composition of the applicant pools and the awardee population. 

SSE will request information on the following identities:

• Racial/ethnic identity
• Sexual orientation identity
• Gender identity
• Ability identity
• Socioeconomic identity

Starting in 2020 (the first year of implementation), application scores may be used in conjunction with demographic data in a second scoring step. Data are also collected to assess any areas of potential bias in soliciting and distributing awards in these categories, with the possibility of further adjustments to our procedures for advertising, collecting, and evaluating applications and nominations in the future.

DATA PRIVACY STATEMENT: Upon completion of each competition, answers to demographic questions will be anonymized and disassociated with all identifying information. Anonymized responses will be archived in order to analyze the composition of applicant pools over time.