External Funding Opportunities
***Limited Submission***
Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Program: Climate + Health Excellence (CHEX) Centers
Synopsis: Supports institutions to bridge the gaps between fields that will have important roles to play in understanding the impacts of climate change on human health and diminishing their effects. This grant will support new discovery toward defining the health impacts of climate change, developing potential interventions, translating discovery science into practical application, and outward-facing work that can help public understanding of Climate + Health or strengthen connections between research and communities whose health has been harmed by climate change. Burroughs Wellcome’s goal is to help these Centers of Excellence achieve their strategic goals by supporting activities that help build stable collaborations between people, departments, and institutions. Building interdisciplinary connections between scholars, between approaches, and between researchers and those outside academe form the bulk of the budget. NOTE: This new limited submission funding opportunity from Burroughs Wellcome is in addition to their Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grant funding opportunity, listed further down in this week’s report.
Award details: Up to $10M over five years.
USC Internal announcement: https://rii.usc.edu/limited-submissions/burroughs-welcome-fund-climate-health-excellent-centers-chex/
External announcement on website: https://www.bwfund.org/funding-opportunities/climate-change-and-human-health/burroughs-wellcome-fund-climate-health-excellence-chex-centers/
USC Internal due date: December 13, 2024.
Letter of Intent due date: August 7, 2025.
External due date: December 4, 2025.
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***Limited Submission***
NSF / Directorate for STEM Education – Division of Undergraduate Education
Program: NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (S-STEM)
Solicitation #: 24-511
Synopsis: Supports institutions of higher education (IHEs) with funds for scholarships to encourage and enable domestic low-income students with academic ability, talent or potential and demonstrated financial need to enter the U.S. workforce following completion of associate, baccalaureate, or graduate degrees in S-STEM eligible disciplines. The program is prioritized and funded on three tracks. Please consult the solicitation for the very detailed information on each track. Track 1 involves institutional capacity building, led by either a faculty member in a S-STEM eligible discipline or an academic administrator who has taught an eligible discipline within the last two years. Track 2 involves implementation and will also be led by either a faculty member in a S-STEM eligible discipline or an academic administrator who has taught an eligible discipline within the last two years; Track 3 involves inter-institutional consortia and support multi-institutional collaborations that focus on a common interest or challenge. Inter-institutional Consortia projects represent diverse collaborations, including partnerships between 2-year colleges and 4-year colleges and universities, between 4-year colleges and graduate programs, or between comparable institutions looking to implement and study parallel interventions.
Award details: Track 1: Requests may be up to $1M for projects up to 6 years; Track 2 proposals may request up to $2M for projects up to 6 years; and Track 3 proposals may request up to $5M for projects up to 6 years. Collaborative projects may not exceed $100K for projects of a maximum one year.
USC Internal announcement: https://rii.usc.edu/limited-submissions/nsf-24-511/
External announcement on website: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/s-stem-nsf-scholarships-science-technology-engineering-mathematics/nsf24-511/solicitation
USC Internal due date: December 13, 2024.
External due date: March 4, 2024.
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***Limited Submission***
NSF / Directorate for STEM Education – Division of Undergraduate Education
Program: Scholarships in STEM Network (S-STEM-Net)
Solicitation #: 23-536
Synopsis: Supports S-Stem Research Hubs that will serve as part of a network of S-STEM stakeholders to further develop the infrastructure needed to generate and disseminate new knowledge, successful practices and effective design principles arising from NSF S-STEM projects nationwide. Consisting of multi-sector partners supporting domestic low-income STEM students in achieving their career goals, while also ensuring access, inclusion, and adaptability to changing learning needs, the Hubs will investigate evolving barriers to the success of this student population. It will also disseminate the context and circumstances by which interventions and practices that support graduation of domestic low-income students (both undergraduate and graduate) pursuing careers in STEM are successful.
Award details: 1 to 5 awards will be made from anticipated $15M program funds.
USC Internal Announcement: https://rii.usc.edu/limited-submissions/nsf-23-536/
External announcement on website: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/s-stem-net-scholarships-stem-network/nsf23-536/solicitation
USC Internal due date: December 13, 2024.
External due date: March 26, 2025.
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American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Program: Hirsch Fellowship in Archaeology
Synopsis: Supports both U.S. and Israeli citizens who are either Ph.D. candidates writing their dissertations or early career scholars within 5 years of conferral of their Ph.D. that requires a lengthy residence in Greece to complete a project in archaeology. Applicants can propose to use any of the School’s research facilities, as long as their research topic has an archaeological component.
Award details: $11.5K stipend plus room and board as well as waiver of School fees. The fellow is expected to be engaged full-time in the supported research from early September 2025 to late May 2026.
Announcement on website: https://ascsa.submittable.com/submit/271324/hirsch-application
Application due date: January 15, 2025.
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Max van Berchem Foundation
Program: Grants
Synopsis: Supports postdoctoral scholars for research in the areas of Islamic and Arabic archaeology, history, geography, art history, epigraphy, religion and literature.
Award details: Application must include a detailed budget in order to be considered.
Announcement on website: https://maxvanberchem.org/en/grant-applications
Application due date: March 31, 2025.
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Watson-Brown Foundation
Program: Grants for projects centered on the American South
Synopsis: Supports scholars and organizations for various projects including subventions, museum and archive support, preservation projects and research projects. While much of Watson-Brown’s grantmaking focuses on organizations in the southeastern U.S., its main priority is supporting projects that advance knowledge about the south—its history and its culture.
Award details: Not specified.
Announcement on website: https://watson-brown.org/grants/
Application due date: April 15, 2025.
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Spencer Foundation
Program: Research Grants on Education: Large
Synopsis: Supports education research projects with the potential to contribute to the improvement of education, broadly conceived. The foundation aims to support scholarship that develops new foundational knowledge that may have a lasting impact on educational discourse. The program supports proposals from multiple disciplinary and methodological perspectives, both domestically and internationally, from scholars at various stages in their career. Proposals may span a wide range of topics and disciplines that creatively investigate questions central to education, including anthropology, philosophy, psychology, sociology, law, economics, history, and neuroscience. PIs and co-PIs must have a doctorate in an academic discipline or professional field or have obtained appropriate experience in an education research-related profession.
Award details: Budgets ranging from $125,000 to $500,000 over one to five years will be considered.
Announcement on website: https://www.spencer.org/grant_types/large-research-grant
Proposal due date: January 14, 2025.
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American Psychological Foundation
Program: Division 37 Diane J. Willis Early Career Award
Synopsis: Supports talented young psychologists making contributions towards informing, advocating for, and improving the mental health of children and families, particularly through policy. Nominees must be early in their careers, no more than 10 years after receiving doctorate in psychology, or education.
Award details: $2K
Announcement on website: https://ampsychfdn.org/funding/willis/
Nominations due date: January 10, 2025. Self-nominations permissible.
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Burroughs Wellcome Fund
Program: Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grant
Synopsis: Supports the development of researchers from “largely disconnected” disciplines who, bringing their expertise, might change the course of climate change’s impact on human health. Of particular interest are activities that build connections between basic / early biomedical scientific approaches and ecological, environmental, geological, geographic, and planetary-scale thinking, as well as with population-focused fields, including epidemiology and public health, demography, economics, and urban planning. Also of interest is work piloting new approaches or interactions toward reducing the impact of health-centered activities, such as developing more sustainable systems for health care, care delivery, and biomedical research systems.
Award details: Burroughs will dedicate $1M to fund projects ranging from $2.5K to $50K.
Announcement on website: https://www.bwfund.org/funding-opportunities/climate-change-and-human-health/climate-change-and-human-health-seed-grants/
Proposal due date: Accepts proposals on a rolling basis until July 2026. Reviews are conducted quarterly as detailed in the solicitation.
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Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (with LifeArc)
Program: Grand Challenge: Innovations for Exceptionally Low-Cost Monoclonal Antibody (mAb) Manufacturing
Synopsis: Supports projects to develop proof-of-concept for manufacturing platforms that produce monoclonal antibodies (mAb) at a final drug substance cost-of goods of $10 per gram (Option A). The goal is to catalyze and accelerate multiple, diverse, innovative bioprocessing approaches that hold the promise of low-cost of goods mAbs. Additionally, the Gates Foundation is interested in hearing from organizations that have already completed proof-of-concept work that could result in cost-of-goods of $10 per gram and may be interested in additional support (Option B). Objectives of the Challenges for both Option A and B include
- Advance innovative and bold ideas that enhance production efficiency and improve overall process economics for mAb production, resulting in a final drug substance cost of-goods of $10 per gram;
- Push the boundaries of current technology by harnessing disruptive innovations, possibly from parallel industries, and identify process improvements to reduce manufacturing costs; and
- Rethink existing methods of working such as release testing process and costs, high quality and affordable raw materials and critical reagents.
Among other preferences sought are proposals that work with the MAM01 malaria antibodies (Option A applicants) or malaria, RSV, or HIV antibodies (Option B applicants) requiring high doses. Eligible applicants are nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies and academic institutions.
Award details: Option A: Up to $750K USD for each project, with a grant term of up to 18 months. Option B: Potential funding and grant terms will be evaluated on a per-project basis. The funding and timeline are intentionally open given that the work is exploratory at this time. Application budgets should be commensurate with the scope of work being proposed.
Announcement on website: https://gcgh.grandchallenges.org/sites/default/files/files/low-cost_mab_manufacturing_rfp.pdf
Application due dates: Option A: January 31, 2025; Option B: My 31, 2025.
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University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR)
Program: UC SAREP Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems
2025-2026 Small Grants Program
Synopsis: Supports projects that build the capacity of farming and food systems businesses and organizations to become reflective, adaptive learning organizations that can respond effectively to ecological, economic, and social change and disruption. Priority will be given to projects directly involving and benefit disadvantaged communities in California (see more about these communities in the solicitation); tribal communities and / or socially disadvantaged farmers, ranchers and land stewards. Seeks projects in 2 priority areas: (1) Supporting California farmers, ranchers, farmers and non-Tribal land stewards for piloting, evaluating and transitioning to, for example, environmentally regenerative approaches to producing crops and livestock (including but not limited to soil health, organic and agroecological practices, integrated pest management, crop diversification); and (2) Supporting California’s rural, urban, and Tribal communities in identifying, implementing, and evaluating strategies to, for example, expand access to healthy, sustainably produced, culturally appropriate foods. The above are bullet points for each priority area. Consult solicitation for additional goals for each priority area.
Award details: Individual grants will be limited to a maximum of $10K with one Applied Research Grant awarded up to $20K, each for one year. Projects may begin as soon as May 1, 2025, and must be completed by April 30, 2026.
Announcement on website: https://sarep.ucdavis.edu/grantsFY25-26
Application due date: January 14, 2025.
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National Endowment for the Humanities / Division of Research Programs
Program: Fellowships
NOFO #: 20250409-FEL
Synopsis: Supports individual scholars from all disciplines pursuing projects that embody exceptional humanistic research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. Fellowships provide recipients with time to conduct research or produce books, monographs, peer-reviewed articles, e-books, digital materials, translations with annotations or a critical apparatus, or critical editions resulting from previous research. Applications must clearly articulate a project’s value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both.
Award details: $5K per month for 6-12 months
Announcement on website: https://www.neh.gov/grants/research/fellowships
Pre-Application webinar: February 12, 2025
Application due date: April 9, 2025. Projects must commence between
January 1, 2026 and September 1, 2027.
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National Endowment for the Humanities (anticipated)
Program: Institutes for Advanced Topics in the Digital Humanities
Synopsis: Supports national or regional (multistate) training programs for scholars, humanities professionals, and advanced graduate students to broaden and extend their knowledge of digital humanities. Through this program, NEH seeks to increase the number of humanities scholars and practitioners using digital technology in their research, and to broadly disseminate knowledge about advanced technology tools and methodologies relevant to the humanities. NEH encourages proposers to develop proposals for multidisciplinary teams that include the necessary range of intellectual, technical, and practical expertise, including humanities scholars, advanced graduate students, librarians, archivists, museum staff, computer scientists, information specialists, and others. A multidisciplinary team will enable the learning of new tools, approaches, and technologies, and to foster relationships for future collaborations in the humanities.
Award details: Maximum award is $250K for a period of performance of up to 36 months.
Announcement on website: https://www.neh.gov/grants/odh/institutes-advanced-topics-in-the-digital-humanities?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Application window (anticipated): November 15, 2024 to February 13, 2025. Project start date September 1. 2025 to September 1, 2026.
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NASA / ROSES 2024
Program: NASA Energy and Water (NEWS) Cycle Study
NOFO #: NNH24ZDA001N-NEWS
Synopsis: Supports projects to leverage the NEWS-Integrated Analysis (NEWS-IA) dataset and ongoing development work to better quantify and characterize changes to Earth’s water and energy cycles. Proposers are required to adopt one or more of the following project objectives: (1) Improve the methodology used by NEWS-IA and demonstrate reduced uncertainty of the water and energy cycle components; (2) Improve the applicability of NEWS-IA to Earth System Model evaluation and refinement; and (3) Quantify the abrupt or time-averaged effect of anthropogenic activities (i.e. urban, agricultural) on NEWS-IA estimates of the coupled global water and energy cycle.
Award details: Anticipate 6 new awards from an expected annual budget of $1.6M. Projects will be 3 years in duration.
Announcement on website: NEWS Cycle Study
Letter of Intent due date: January 9, 2025.
Full proposal due date: February 20, 2025.
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Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA-E) Department of Energy (DoE)
Program: Catalytic application testing for accelerated learning chemistries via high-throughput experimentation modeling efficiently (CALACHEM-E)
NOFO #: DE-FOA-0003505
Synopsis: Supports projects that propose to disrupt and accelerate the traditional heterogeneous catalyst Research & Development workflows spanning from rational design of research catalyst powders to synthesis, characterization, and reactor-scale testing of technical catalyst composites—developed in two 18 month phases. In Phase 1, teams will tightly couple state-of-the-art high-throughput experimentation (HTE) methods with advanced tools and techniques in artificial intelligence / machine learning to achieve more than a ten-time acceleration in the catalyst development cycle. Further impact will be realized in Phase 2 by utilizing the tools developed in Phase 1 to achieve novel catalyst-reaction discovery and co-design. The program encourages the development of closed-loop and other promising, automated workflow topologies that enable inverse design of heterogeneous catalysts. Other program elements include
- Enhanced data integrity and benchmarking through reference chemistries;
- High-quality data generation via HTE;
- AI / ML-ready catalysis databases and informatics;
- Transformational multi-scale, multi-modal modeling using AI / ML; and
- Surrogate AI / ML assisted computational modeling and simulations.
Award details: $35M program funding for this NOFO and NOFO #DE-FOA-0003506, of which 10-12 awards will be made. Federal share of awards will range from $2.5M and $3.5M.
Announcement on website: CATALCHEM-E
Concept Paper due date: December 17, 2024.
Full Application due date: TBD
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NSF / Directorate for Geosciences – Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences
Program: Coupling, Energetics and Dynamics of Atmospheric Regions (CEDAR)
Solicitation #: NSF 25-510
Synopsis: Supports the study of 1) dynamics, energetics and comparative aeronomy of the upper atmosphere of the Earth and other planets in our solar system; 2) coupling among the mesosphere, ionosphere, thermosphere, and exosphere; 3) horizontal coupling between adjacent geographic regions; 4) and impacts from lower atmosphere, magnetosphere and solar radiation and, (5) utilization of novel methods (for example, artificial intelligence and machine learning tools), open data and open science practices to advance the upper atmospheric research. Proposers are strongly encouraged to take a systems perspective of geospace in their projects and explore innovative ways to integrate observation and modeling to answer science questions. Observational datasets from any relevant sources may be included but data from NSF funded observations are particularly welcome.
Award details: The typical award size is approximately $150K per year for 3 years, though proposers may request from 1 to 5 years of justified funding. Program funding for new awards is $3M.
Announcement on website: https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/files/nsf25510.pdf?WT.mc_ev=click&WT.mc_id=&utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery
Proposal target date: March 5, 2025.
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NIH / Across most Institutes and Centers (ICs)
Program: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Institutional Research Training (Parent T32—NRSA)
NOFO #: PA-25-168
Synopsis: Supports eligible, domestic institutions to develop and / or enhance predoctoral and postdoctoral research training, including short-term research training, to help ensure that a diverse and highly trained workforce is available to meet the needs of the Nation’s biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research agenda. Research training programs are expected to incorporate engaging, didactic, research, and career development elements to prepare trainees for careers that will have a significant impact on the health-related research needs of the Nation. Programs proposing only short-term predoctoral research training should not apply to this announcement, but rather to the Kirschstein-NRSA Short-Term Institutional Research Training Grant Program (T35) exclusively reserved for predoctoral, short-term research training.
Award details: Application budgets are not limited, but must reflect the actual needs of the proposed project.
Announcement on website: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-25-168.html
Application due dates: 3 application due dates each year through 2027. Next due date is January 25, 2025 for all types of applications except AIDS applications. Next AIDS application due date is May 7, 2025.
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NIH / National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) / Office of the Director of NIH (OD)
Program: Exploratory / Developmental Research on Guillain Barre Syndrome (GBS) and Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP) (R21 — Exploratory / Developmental research grant)
NOFO #: RFA-NS-25-025
Synopsis: Supports studies aimed at accelerating progress toward understanding, preventing or treating GBS and / or CIDP, both pathological conditions of the nervous system. Innovative studies of disease mechanisms, susceptibility factors, model systems, biomarkers and treatments are encouraged. Examples of areas of interest include (partial)
- Understanding the mechanisms through which cellular and humoral immune responses cause peripheral nerve myelin and axonal damage in these conditions;
- Developing, characterizing and sharing animal or cellular model systems that better represent disease mechanisms and physiologic outcomes; and
- Identifying and characterizing genetic susceptibility factors.
Award details: Maximum 2-year budget is $275K in direct costs. No single year’s budget may exceed $200K.
Announcement on website: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-NS-25-025.html
Application due dates: 2 due dates in 2025 for all applications except AIDS applications. Next due date is March 3, 2025.
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NIH / National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Program: Developing novel theory and methods for understanding the genetic architecture of complex human traits (R01, R21)
NOFO #’s: PAR-25-255; PAR-25-256
Synopsis: Supports projects with novel approaches for characterizing the genetic architecture of complex human traits that go beyond methods focused on the number, impact, and frequency of trait-associated alleles. These approaches should include a more comprehensive characterization of direct and non-direct, additive and non-additive, and main and interaction genetic and non-genetic effects. Approaches should also account for interdependencies across scales of biological, social, and ecological organization that may confound genetic association studies. Proposed frameworks should make extensive use of formal theory, mechanistic models, robust simulations, and empirical validation with publicly accessible, large-scale datasets from populations with diverse environmental exposures, life experiences, demographics, or geographic histories.
Award details: R01: Application budgets are not limited but need to reflect the actual needs of the proposed project. For NCI applications, the budget is limited to $350K direct costs per year and should reflect the actual needs of the proposed project. R21: The combined budget for direct costs for the two-year project period may not exceed $275K. No more than $200K may be requested in any single year.
Announcements on website: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-25-255.html; https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PAR-25-256.html
Application due dates: 3 times annually for 2025 and 2026. R01 next due date is February 5, 2025 for new applications; March 5, 2025 for resubmissions, renewals and revised applications. R21 next due date is February 16, 2025 for new applications; March 16, 2025 2025 for resubmissions, renewals and revised applications.
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***Other Funding Opportunity***
Glenn W. Bailey Foundation
Program: STEM Funding
Synopsis: Supports institutions for undergraduate students pursuing STEM degrees. Funding possibilities include, but are not limited to: Competitions and showcases; Career services; Lecture series; Research projects; Conferences
Award details: Up to $25K
Application due date: Rolling
If interested please contact Jennifer Lidar, Executive Director of Foundations Relations, University Advancement, Central Development <jlidar@usc.edu>
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