Research Project
9949727
? DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Center for Family and Demographic Research (CFDR) at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) seeks five years of renewed funding from the Population Dynamics Centers Research Infrastructure program (P2C). We request support for research infrastructure that will build on our momentum by continuing to generate cutting-edge research on families and the health and development of children, adolescents, and adults; shape the national research agenda; provide efficient support to affiliates engaged in population science research; mentor junior faculty and early stage investigators; and leverage strong institutional support and commitments. We are currently supported as a Specialized Research Center with an emphasis in family demography and seek to broaden our scope beyond the limits set on specialized centers by expanding beyond one research theme, requesting support above the funding cap, and adding a Public Core. We are a relatively small center (42 affiliates) with a modest level of support, but CFDR research has had a major impact on population science. Since its inception in 2000, the CFDR has laid the groundwork for innovative research that moves beyond traditional discipline- and method-bound work. CFDR research is central to the Population Dynamics Branch scientific mission. CFDR affiliates research is award winning, published in the top journals, and heavily cited. A marker of our success and indicator of future productivity is an expanded grant portfolio with new teams of researchers. CFDR's infrastructure has yielded outstanding returns, cementing our prominence in demography. The primary anticipated benefit of continued NIH support for the CFDR is very clear: the advancement of a top-quality interdisciplinary and mixed-method research tradition focused on family demography, fertility and reproductive health, and social contexts and well-being. Several emphases cut across these themes, such as life course stage, cohort change and period influences, subgroup variation, and measurement. We pursue the following four goals in the current application: 1) Further increase the scientific impact, innovation, and productivity of CFDR; 2) Ensure CFDR affiliate competitiveness for external funding; 3) Support the development of CFDR affiliates with an emphasis on junior faculty; and 4) Ignite population science by providing new data and research tools for the broader community. We accomplish those goals by supporting four efficient cores that complement one another: Administrative, Computing and Data, Development, and Public. The CFDR is already providing national leadership, and our vision is to continue to foster an environment of innovation and collaboration that yields high impact research on cutting-edge issues in demography including new work on same-sex couples, family trajectories of reproductive health, and the role of the criminal justice system in families and well-being. To further this vision, the CFDR long-term plan includes expanding our role in shaping the national research agenda and spearheading new demographic data collection efforts.
