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Who?
Groups, individuals or organisations. Established Wikimedia researchers or established researchers who want to become Wikimedia researchers.
What?
Research Proposals (Type 1), Extended Research Proposals (Type 2), and Event and Community-Building Proposals (Type 3).
When?
Up to 12 months (Type 1 and 3) and up to 24 months (Type 2). Proposed work can start as early as July 1, 2025 and must end no later than the end of grant period.
How much?
Requests must be over 2,000 USD. The maximum request is 50,000 USD (Type 1 and 3) and 150,000 USD (Type 2) (with a maximum of 75,000 USD per year).
The Research Fund round for the Fiscal Year 2025-26 will be announced soon.
Who we fund
[edit]The Research Fund supports individuals, groups, and organizations with expertise and interest in conducting research on or about Wikimedia projects. We encourage submissions from across research disciplines, including but not limited to the humanities, social sciences, computer science and engineering, education, and law.
Applicants should be established Wikimedia researchers (i.e., people with a history of conducting research related to Wikimedia projects) or established researchers who want to become Wikimedia researchers. We will fund proposals primarily based on our assessment of whether a grant will result in high-quality and high-impact scholarship. We will prioritize proposals from applicants who have limited access to research funding, are in regions of the world where the Wikimedia research community has less representation, have experience conducting research in collaboration with Wikimedia communities, and/or are proposing work that has the potential for direct, positive impact on either the global or local Wikimedia communities.
What we fund and what we do not fund 
[edit]For the 2025 round, we welcome three types of submissions.
Type 1: Research Proposals
[edit]We expect to fund 4-10 grants to support basic or applied research projects related to Wikimedia projects. We expect that these projects will include the following types of research:
- The production of research products (especially peer-reviewed scholarly publications) that can:
- Contribute to generalizable knowledge that has the potential to improve and expand our understanding of the Wikimedia projects and their impact;
- Identify and/or evaluate novel technical and socio-technical solutions that can enhance the technology or policy in support of the Wikimedia projects;
- Inform important social or policy decisions that organized groups within the Wikimedia communities want to make.
- The development of datasets of importance for Wikimedia communities (including but not limited to Wikimedia research communities).
We are particularly interested in proposals that advance the Wikimedia Movement towards the 2030 strategic direction, the Multigenerational strategy, and/or seek to provide evidence of causal effects.
Our funds are limited and we want to focus the funds on the most important and unaddressed research gaps on the Wikimedia projects that existing Movement organizations and initiatives are less likely to tackle. To this end, we will not fund:
- Research proposals to develop a product or technology in support of the Wikimedia projects;
- Research proposals that involve conducting a study that is identical or similar to a study previously conducted in one language edition of Wikipedia in another, unless there is a strong reason to believe the result will differ.
Funding Amount: Funding of between 2,000-50,000 USD per proposal.
Time Period: Work should be conducted for up to 1 year (12 months).
Type 2: Extended Research Proposals
[edit]We expect to fund up to two grants for extended research proposals. This proposal will have the same scope and goals as the “normal” research proposal described in the section above but will be higher in total funding amount and in the time period the work is carried out.
Funding Amount: Funding of up to 50,000-150,000 USD (over all years of the grant period with up to USD 75,000 per year) per proposal.
Time Period: Work should be conducted for up to 2 years (24 months). We will consider (re-)applications in the second year of these grants for a third year of funding to continue or extend work made during a potential third year.
Type 3: Event and Community-Building Proposals
[edit]We will fund up to 5 proposals by established members of the Wikimedia research community to organize events or conduct community-building projects to strengthen, expand, and diversify the community of researchers studying Wikimedia projects and increasing the Wikimedia research community’s collective impact.
Funding Amount: Funding of up to 50,000 USD per proposal.
Time Period: Work should be conducted for up to 1 year (12 months).
Other Types of Projects
[edit]For other Wikimedia Foundation funding options, please see: Wikimedia Foundation grant programs including the Wikimedia Community Fund.
Eligibility criteria 
[edit]- Individuals, groups, and organizations may apply. Any individual is allowed three open grants at any one time. This includes Rapid Funds. Groups or organizations can have up to five open grants at any one time.
- Requests must be over USD 2,000. The maximum request is 50,000 USD for Type 1 and 3 proposals and 150,000 USD for Type 2 proposals (with a maximum of 75,000 USD per year).
- Funding periods can be up to 12 months for Type 1 and 3 proposals and up to 24 months for Type 2. Proposed work can start as early as July 1, 2025 and must end no later than the end of the agreed grant period.
- Recipients must agree to the reporting requirements, be willing to sign a grant agreement, and provide the Wikimedia Foundation with information needed to process funding. You can read more about eligibility requirements.
- Applications and reports must be submitted in English.
- Potential applicants should not submit a proposal if at least one of the following holds true:
- At least one applicant has been an employee or contractor at the Wikimedia Foundation in the last 24 months;
- At least one applicant has had an advisee/advisor relationship with one or more of the Research Fund Committee Chairs or members of the Wikimedia Research team;
- At least one of the applicants is a current or has been a former Formal Collaborator of the Research team at the Wikimedia Foundation in the last 24 months;
- At least one applicant has co-authored a scientific publication with the Research Fund Committee Chairs within the last 24 months.
- Potential applicants must meet all WMF General Eligibility requirements listed at Legal and conduct requirements.
Application forms and guides 
[edit]If you are submitting a proposal for a Research Proposal or an Extended Research Proposal, please use research-proposal-template to submit your application. Please read the template document carefully before preparing your final submission as it contains important instructions and the link to the budget template.
If you are submitting a proposal for an Event and Community-Building, please use event-and-community-building-template.
Similar to previous years, we will use OpenReview for application submissions. Go to the Open Review Submission Portal to enter your proposal. Please make sure to set up your account in advance since OpenReview may need to approve it.
How we fund 
[edit]Application process
[edit]Applicants submit proposals in response to the call for Research Fund Proposals. Proposals will be subject to an initial review by the fund chairs for conformance to eligibility criteria and potential for funding. All proposals that are considered for further review will be made publicly available to allow Wikimedia community members, Wikimedia affiliates, and Regional Fund Committees to provide optional feedback. These proposals will be subject to a technical review by the Research Fund chairs and third-party experts.
Review process
[edit]The Research Fund Committee chairs will provide an initial assessment of the proposals regarding eligibility, fit for the program, and potential for funding to create a shorter list of applications to be given a technical review by third-party experts. Technical review will use a single-blind review process in which the identities of the applicants are known, but the Research Fund Committee technical reviewers are anonymous. Technical reviewers will self-declare their expertise for each proposal and disclose any potential conflicts of interest to Research Fund chairs. Each submission will receive a composite score and comprehensive reviews from the chairs. Each proposal will receive at least three technical reviews and may receive input from one or more of the seven Wikimedia Regional Funds Committees when requested as well as the relevant Wikimedia affiliates or user groups. Each proposal may also receive public input from the Wikimedia volunteer communities through a structured feedback process on Meta-Wiki. The final decision will be made by the Research Fund Committee chairs considering the assessment of expert reviewers as well as the feedback and input from the Regional Funds Committees and the broader Wikimedia communities.
Selection criteria
[edit]We will assess submissions based on the following criteria:
- Research. The proposed work's primary focus must be to conduct research designed to contribute to generalizable knowledge or research community building. Because they are not focused on generalizable knowledge, research efforts on understanding the specific needs of an organization or community will not be considered. Note that proposals with a primary focus on outreach, technology development/deployment, institutional support, other non-research activities, or research focused on specific organizations are funded through other funds offered by the Wikimedia Foundation. (This criterion is not applicable to Events and Community-Building Proposals.)
- Relevance. The research must be on or about Wikimedia projects or of significant importance to the Wikimedia projects.
- Impact. We aim to prioritize proposals that aim to enable the Wikimedia communities in making important decisions or taking actions of significant impact as a result of the research conducted. We will give special consideration to proposals that directly address the Wikimedia 2030 Strategic Direction (including but not limited to the Movement Recommendations), the Multigenerational strategy, as well as proposals that attempt to answer research questions in less commonly studied languages of Wikipedia.
- Geography of the applicants and their corresponding institutions. We welcome proposals from all regions of the world. However, because we aim to increase the geographical diversity of researchers who contribute to the Wikimedia projects, we particularly encourage submissions from researchers in Central and South America, Africa, Eastern Europe and Asia.
- Community.We aim to fund work that helps the Wikimedia communities make important decisions with regards to the working of the projects. We will prioritize proposals that support or work with Wikimedia user groups, affiliates, and developer communities. We encourage applicants to include one or more members of these communities in your team and consult Community Wishlists from 2019, 2020, and 2021 for ideas of problems raised by these groups.
- Prior contributions to related academic and/or research projects and/or the Wikimedia and free culture communities. We will review self-reported contributions by the applicants to gain a deeper understanding of applicants’ research interests, skills and abilities. We prioritize giving funds to proposals by established Wikimedia researchers or established researchers in other fields who want to become Wikimedia researchers.
Budgets
[edit]Please prepare your budget carefully using the budget-template which is prepopulated with sample expense details. Note that there are two sheets in the template – one for research proposals and one for events and community building activities. Please complete the relevant sheet based on your application.
Because the WMF mission is focused on education, budgets should not include faculty teaching “buyouts”—i.e., any budgeting for salary or effort that will result in a reduction of teaching. If the research project being proposed is absolutely not possible without a buyout, please provide context in your budget request and an exception will be considered by the Research Fund Committee.
Our overall budget for Research Funds is limited. We ask you to request funds only for the amount that you need to make your proposed research a reality and do not aim to necessarily reach the limit of the category you are submitting for. As a rule of thumb: the higher the budget you ask, the higher our expectation for your proposal to be comprehensive and impactful and the budget to be detailed. Higher budget generally translates to more scrutiny towards your application for us to assure we are distributing the funds in the best way we can.
Final grant amounts are up to the discretion of the Research Fund Committee, who may reach out to finalists to ask for a reduced budget and a proportionally reduced scope of work. For Type 1 research proposals and Type 3 event proposals, funds will be disbursed in one payment at the beginning of the funding period (as early as July 2025). For Type 2 extended proposals, funds will be disbursed in separate installments, as will be determined by the Research Fund Committee.
Ethics
[edit]All proposals should follow principles of ethical research and rules and guidelines related to human subjects research. We encourage authors to read the Menlo Report for further information on ethical principles, the Allman/Paxson IMC ‘07 paper for guidance on ethical data sharing, and the Sandvig et al. ‘14 paper on the ethics of algorithm audits. Finalists must address possible ethical challenges and how they will address them in their proposal. Institutional Review Board review (if applicable) needs to be completed before funds are distributed.
Conflict of interest policy
[edit]In reviewing proposals, we will apply ACM’s conflict of interest policy to all Research Fund applications.
Research outputs
[edit]To make the results of the research actionable and reusable by the Wikimedia volunteer communities, affiliates and Foundation, applicants must ensure that any output of your research complies with the Wikimedia Foundation Open Access Policy. Applicants are encouraged to include open access publication costs as part of your budget.
Grantees are expected to create project pages on MetaWiki:Research documenting the progress of their work once a month. In addition, they are expected to complete final financial and project reports using provided templates, and present at a future Wikimedia Research event as well as at least at one event within their research community.
Important Dates 
[edit]To be announced
Application submission deadline
To be announced
Application notifications
All deadlines are 23:59 Anywhere on Earth.
Review submissions 
[edit]Office Hours 
[edit]We invite you to schedule 1:1 consultations with us to ask questions about the Research Fund program or the relevance of your proposed work. Schedule a session with Kinneret Gordon or schedule a session with Leila Zia. When scheduling your appointment, please provide a description of your proposed research topic or question.
We will also hold an open call to answer any questions people may have. Please join us on Tuesday, March 18, 2025, 17:15 – 18:00 UTC via Google Meet.
Contact us 
[edit]Please direct questions to research_fund
wikimedia.org.
Organizing Committee 
[edit]Grant committee chairs
[edit]- Benjamin Mako Hill (University of Washington)
- Leila Zia (Wikimedia Foundation)
Workflow Chair
[edit]- Kinneret Gordon (Wikimedia Foundation)
FAQ
[edit]See: Wikimedia Research Fund/FAQ
