Call for Proposals: The Mercury Project | Social Science Research Council

Evidence-based strategies to combat health mis- and disinformation and to increase the uptake of reliable health information are critical to an effective and equitable pandemic response.

The Mercury Project invites letters of inquiry for research projects that address one or more of the following goals:

1)  estimating the causal impacts of mis- and disinformation on online and offline outcomes in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, including health, economic, and/or social outcomes, differential impacts across sociodemographic groups, and quantifying the global costs of those impacts;

2) estimating the causal impacts of online or offline interventions in the United States, Africa, Asia, and Latin America to increase uptake of Covid-19 vaccines and other recommended public health measures by countering mis- and disinformation, including interventions that target the producers or the consumers of mis- and disinformation, or that increase confidence in reliable information.

Proposed projects may have a duration of up to 30 months. Primary applicant organizations must be tax-exempt organizations or the equivalent in the local context (e.g., nonprofit organizations, universities, governmental units). Preference will be given to research teams that are interdisciplinary and that include a diverse set of researchers and institutions, including researchers and institutions located in the country in which the study is being conducted and that have deep contextual knowledge and connections.

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