Brandeis Alumni, Family and Friends

Ford Foundation funds research on human capital

Ford is partnering with Just Capital to fund seven projects (out of 80 responses to a 2022 RFP) advancing research that will help investors and other stakeholders understand the impacts of workforce management and compensation on company performance as well as in other domains. Topics range from research on employee value calculations in S&P 1500 companies to studying the effect of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.

Omidyar Network funds global teams to reimagine the data economy

The Future of Data Challenge has awarded $1.1M to 15 two-year projects designed to shift ideas, rules, and power in the new data economy. Ten teams will receive $100,000, and an additional five will receive $20,000. The RFP garnered hundreds of applications during last year's four-month open period.
 
A new call for proposals will launch this spring, in partnership with the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. The Data Empowerment Fund will support a range of projects between $50,000 and $200,000 to help build infrastructure--technological, legal, and social—that would promote greater individual and community agency over our data.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative launches to biomedical research hub in Chicago

The CZ Biohub Chicago will bring together the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to develop new technologies for studying and measuring biological process in living tissue, with an ultimate goal of understanding and treating the inflammatory states that underlie many diseases. Consortia from all over the country responded to CZI’s January 2022 call for proposals for a new research center to join CZI’s San Francisco Biohub as part of the CZ Biohub network. CZI expects to invest $200-250 million in the new venture over 10-15 years.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Life Sciences

The Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund – Research Grant

Awards two-year grants of up to $160,000 to support innovative clinical, health, and social service system research and demonstration projects in the greater Boston area designed to improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with disabilities.
Deadline: April 5, 2023

Social Sciences

J. M. Kaplan Fund – Innovation Prize

Awarding ten winners a cash prize of $150,000 over three years, plus $25,000 in expenses to support early-stage projects in the areas of the environment, heritage conservation, and social injustice. 
Deadline: April 28, 2023

Lever for Change  – MacKenzie Scott Yield Giving

The invitation to submit proposals aims to recognize and boost community-focused non-profits that are substantially improving the well-being of individuals and families. 250 organizations will each receive $1M. Faculty are encouraged to share this opportunity with community partners whose operating budgets are at least $1M.
Deadline to register: May 5, 2023 Deadline to submit: June 12, 2023

Tikvah Fund – Krauthammer Fellowship

A program for talented young writers seeking to advance their careers as Jewish intellectuals. Spanning the fields of law, academia, public policy, business and journalism. Eligible fellows will receive a $5,000 stipend.
Deadline: May 21, 2023

The Smith Richardson Foundation – Strategy and Policy Fellows Grant

Supporting young scholars and policy thinkers on American foreign policy; international relations; international security; military policy; and diplomatic and military history. The Foundation will award at least three research grants of $60,000 each for recipients to research and write a book.
Deadline: June 15, 2023

UC Berkeley receives $10M Hewlett Foundation grant for political economy research center

The five-year grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation will establish the Berkeley Economy and Society Initiative (BESI), which will support interdisciplinary research at the intersection of economics and politics. BESI will be housed in the UC Berkeley College of Letters & Science and supported by the university’s Social Science Matrix, a separate research institute that facilitates cross-disciplinary projects. This grant follows several years of Hewlett support for the Berkeley Network for a New Political Economy initiative and reflects the foundation’s interest in developing new paradigms for understanding the relationship between the economy and democracy.

Tech industry funding application of VR at US universities

More than 100 global higher education institutions were selected last month to participate in an immersive-learning pilot program led by Facebook’s parent company, Meta. Nineteen U.S. colleges and universities were selected to participate in the pilot, including the West Virginia University Institute of Technology, Miami University and Syracuse University.

Heising-Simons Foundation grants UNH $425,000 for permafrost microbe visualization technology

The grant will support the efforts of UNH Assistant Professor Jessica Ernakovich and the Permafrost Microbiome Network to develop new tools for visualizing changes in thawing Arctic permafrost soils and analyzing the implication of those changes. The project is working with researchers country-wide, crowdsourcing permafrost samples from multiple arctic sites.  The grant comes as part of the foundation’s focus on climate change within its Science Program, which awarded $35.8 million to 121 projects in 2022. 

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Life Sciences

The Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund –Research Grant

Awards two-year grants of up to $160,000 to support innovative clinical, health, and social service system research and demonstration projects in the greater Boston area designed to improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with disabilities.
Deadline: April 5, 2023

The Gruber Foundation – Research Award

Awarding two young neuroscientists for outstanding research and educational pursuit in an international setting. Winners receive a $25,000 prize and complimentary registration and accommodations for the annual SfN meeting. 
Deadline: March 28, 2023

Social Sciences

J. M. Kaplan Fund – Innovation Prize

Awarding ten winners a cash prize of $150,000 over three years, plus $25,000 in expenses to support early-stage projects in the areas of the environment, heritage conservation, and social injustice. 
Deadline: April 28, 2023

Physical Sciences

The Gruber Foundation – TGF Fellowship

Supports the science of cosmology and other branches of astronomy. The Fellowship will award $75,000 to an early career astrophysicist, working in any field. Researchers in the last months of their PhD, having already received contract for post-doctoral position, or post-docs in their first year of appointment are encouraged to apply.
Deadline: March 31, 2023

Wake Forest receives major Lilly Endowment grant for character education

The five-year, $30.7M grant will enable Wake Forest's Program for Leadership and Character to create a national higher education network devoted to educating character. $24M will fund a national competitive grant program that will provide funding for institutions with their own initiatives focused on character development, with grants ranging from $250,000 to $1M. The remaining funds will support Wake Forest, which will develop resources on character education and hold workshops, trainings and seminars. Established in 2017, the Program for Leadership and Character is a university-wide initiative to educate leaders of character, and this new Lilly Endowment grant builds on previous, seven-figure grants from the John Templeton Foundation, the Kern Family Foundation, and the Lilly Endowment.

Mellon Foundation grants $12M for humanities-based civic engagement and social justice work

Twenty-six institutions received grants for projects ranging from $250,000 to $500,000, including: Voting Rights History as Civic Literacy at Florida Atlantic University, which will develop a curriculum on the history of voting and electoral politics for undergraduate U.S. history survey courses; Housing the Third Reconstruction from UCLA, which will study displacement and dispossession in US cities; and Pido la Palabra at the University of Texas at Austin, which will work with partners to create Spanish-language creative writing courses in prisons and associated courses at U.T. to train in-prison educators.

The grants result from Mellon's Higher Learning program spring 2022 open call, which invited proposals in three categories—Civic Engagement, Race and Racialization in the U.S., and Social Justice and Literary Imagination—and generated more than 280 submissions from 150 institutions. 

Boston University robotics R&D lab wins $4.4M matching grant from state, backed by industry

The grant comes from the Commonwealth's Collaborative Research and Development Matching Grant Program and will fund the new Robotics and Autonomous System's Teaching and Innovation Center (RASTIC). The center will allow BU to boost student research and innovation in the robotics space. The grant will support a three-year, $8.7M project managed by BU in collaboration with industry partners, including AETLabs, Boston Scientific, and Intel. The funding will expand enrollment in the university's graduate-level robotics degree program by more than 80 students per year and support BU’s Technology Innovation Scholars Program, which connects K-12 students at 21 Boston-area schools with undergraduate and graduate student mentors.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Life Sciences

Simons Foundation – Fellowship Award

The Klingenstein-Simon Fellowship Awards, sponsored by the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund and the Simons Foundation, support, in the early stages of their careers, young investigators engaged in basic or clinical research that may lead to a better understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The awards provide $300,000 over three years.
Deadline: February 15, 2023

Charles A. King Trust – Post Doctoral Research Fellowship

Funding postdoctoral fellows and physician-scientists in non-profit academic, medical or research institutions in Massachusetts. Two-year grants ranging from $194,100 to $215,000 are available in Basic Sciences and Clinical/Health Services.
Deadline: March 1, 2023

Social Sciences

J. M. Kaplan Fund – Furthermore Grants In Publishing

Supporting nonfiction books having to do with art, architecture, and design; cultural history and the city; conservation and preservation; and related public issues. Grants are awarded to help meet such specific needs as writing, research, indexing, editing, translation, design, photography, illustration, and printing and binding. Awards are typically in the range of $1,500 to $7,000. Book proposals to which a publisher is already committed and for which there is a feasible distribution plan are preferred. If you are interested, please submit a short description of your book project and its current publication status to provresearch@brandeis.edu.
Deadline: February 10, 2023

Physical Sciences

The Gruber Foundation – TGF Fellowship

Supports the science of cosmology and other branches of astronomy. The Fellowship will award $75,000 to an early career astrophysicist, working in any field. Researchers in the last months of their PhD, having already received contract for post-doctoral position, or post-docs in their first year of appointment are encouraged to apply.
Deadline: March 31, 2023

Optum Labs Collaborates with Cornell

Optum Labs, the research arm of UnitedHealth Group, and Cornell Tech have created a collaborative research hub to transform patient health outcomes and care through new technologies, including wearables, IoT devices, and new types of remote care. Optum Labs is providing funding in 2022 and 2023. 

UNC and Amazon Web Services launch health research startup initiative

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Eshelman Institute for Innovation will collaborate with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on a project to create ten new UNC-based startups in the healthcare technology field. The projects will focus on multiple areas, including patient-facing wellness support, diagnostics, enterprise systems support, and therapeutic innovations. The backbone of these new projects will be the lab’s cloud-native “software factory” that utilizes AWS tools like SageMaker and Rekognition to boost research and growth through increasingly powerful software solutions. AWS will collaborate on supporting 25 projects over three years. 

Luce grant to fund the Grounded Knowledge Project

The Henry Luce Foundation has awarded the Institute for Diversity and Civic Life a $290,000 grant to support the Grounded Knowledge Project, an initiative to create both off- and online spaces for scholars in religious studies to do public-facing, community-engaged work. Working groups will focus on creating multiple digital resources, including a four-part miniseries, a website, and an online training certificate in partnership with ReligionAndPublicLife.org. 

Rockefeller Foundation announces $3M for new pathogen surveillance and response platform

The new funding will support and expand the scope of the industry-leading open-source platform for scientific pandemic data, Global.health (G.h.), a collaboration between Harvard, Oxford, Georgetown, and several other universities and academic medical centers. Following initial grants from Google.org and The Rockefeller Foundation in 2020, G.h. will use the new funds to create actionable new initiatives to fight infectious disease, including the creation of scalable algorithms to track and predict infection spread. The platform will allow for open source pandemic response analysis and will include new working groups with international teams of scientists, prioritizing lower and middle-income countries. The $3M comes from RF Catalytic Capital, Inc. (RFCC), the foundation’s public charity, launched in 2020 to focus on solutions and transformative change during the Covid-19 response and recovery.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Life Sciences

Smith Family Foundation – Odyssey Award

Supports high impact ideas to generate breakthroughs and drive new directions in biomedical research.  The awards will fund high-risk, high-reward pilot projects solicited from innovative junior faculty in the region. Junior investigators that are beyond 4 years from their first independent faculty appointment and have not yet received tenure are eligible to apply for this award.
Deadline: January 10, 2023

Simons Foundation – Fellowship Award

The Klingenstein-Simon Fellowship Awards, sponsored by the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund and the Simons Foundation, support, in the early stages of their careers, young investigators engaged in basic or clinical research that may lead to a better understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The awards provide $300,000 over three years.
Deadline: February 15, 2023

Charles A. King Trust – Post Doctoral Research Fellowship

Funding postdoctoral fellows and physician-scientists in non-profit academic, medical or research institutions in Massachusetts. Two-year grants ranging from $194,100 to $215,000 are available in Basic Sciences and Clinical/Health Services.
Deadline: March 1, 2023

Social Sciences

Templeton World Charity Foundation – Research Grants

Supporting 12 projects with up to $250,000 available for each. The projects should advance the knowledge base for researchers seeking to measure and map polarization between and within societies and cultures, examining the underlying mechanisms of polarization and depolarization. Projects should have clear and measurable indicators of these mechanisms.
Deadline: January 24, 2023

Arnold Ventures funds new Center for the Study and Practice of Violence Reduction at University of Maryland

The Center, also known as the VRC, will gather research on community-based violence, synthesize it, then make it available free of charge to the general public as well as federal, state, and local leaders, along with practical instructions on how to apply this data and effect real-world change. The VRC is part of the university’s 120 Initiative, which works to reduce gun violence in the United States.

Henry Luce Foundation awards $250,000 to Wake Forest for original play commission on race, justice, and religion

The grant will fund “Finding Holy Ground: Performing Visions of Race and Justice in America,” a collaboration among the School of Divinity, the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, and Wake the Arts that will produce two original plays to be presented at the 2024 Black Theatre Festival. Plays will be selected based on their ability to encourage community conversations on race, justice, and religion in the United States. 

Syracuse University gets $2.7M from MetLife Foundation for racial wealth gap research

The three-year grant to the Lender Center for Social Justice will address what the foundation calls “a persistent crisis of undermined social and economic opportunities for underserved communities throughout the United States.” Projects that come out of the grant will be focused on four key areas: creating a working group to organize discussions across the country; hiring diverse postdoctoral researchers with lived experience with these issues; funding faculty research; and partnering with leading voices on the subject to raise awareness.

Arnold Ventures funds University of Chicago research on the effectiveness of high-dosage tutoring

Funding totaling $18M will support a large-scale randomized control trial in four major urban public school districts, designed to see if high-dosage tutoring—a proven but expensive educational intervention—can be scaled cost-effectively. The University of Chicago Education Lab is partnering with researchers at Northwestern University, Stanford University and the University of Toronto on this “moonshot to overcome pandemic learning loss.”

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Kress Foundation – History of Art Grants

Supports scholarly projects that enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies.
Deadline: December 15, 2022

Covenant Foundation – Ignition or Signature Grant LOI 

Covenant supports Jewish education through innovative programming. The Foundation offers Ignition Grants (seed grants of $20,000 for one year) and Signature Grants ($150,000, typically over two years). This is a limited submission opportunity—organizations are allowed only one applicant. An internal review process will select the university's nominee for the LOI, due March 1, 2023. Please submit a three-paragraph description of your project and grant request, including known and/or anticipated funding sources, to Rich Levitt by December 15, 2022. The nominee will be notified by January 13, 2023. 

Smith Family Foundation – Odyssey Award

Supports high impact ideas to generate breakthroughs and drive new directions in biomedical research.  The awards will fund high-risk, high-reward pilot projects solicited from innovative junior faculty in the region. Junior investigators that are beyond 4 years from their first independent faculty appointment and have not yet received tenure are eligible to apply for this award.
Deadline: January 10, 2023

Templeton World Charity Foundation – Research Grants

Supporting 12 projects with up to $250,000 available for each. The projects should advance the knowledge base for researchers seeking to measure and map polarization between and within societies and cultures, examining the underlying mechanisms of polarization and depolarization. Projects should have clear and measurable indicators of these mechanisms.
Deadline: January 24, 2023

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announces 2022 Inventor Fellows

Five young scientists have been named Moore Inventor Fellows, out of 200 nominations from US universities. The fellowship supports scientist-inventors who create new tools and technologies that promise to accelerate progress in the foundation's key areas of interest: scientific discovery, environmental conservation, and patient care. Each fellow receives $825,000 over three years, including $50,000 per year from their home institution. The 2022 cohort is pursuing inventions ranging from a biochemical system to map protein secretion in live tissue to an environmentally friendly way to stay cool using solid refrigerants.

Lego Foundation to award $117M for early childhood education

The Lego Foundation has announced ten finalists for its global Build a World of Play challenge after receiving 627 submissions from 86 countries. The competition will award 900M Kroner (approximately $117M) to the winners. Finalists have projects in need of funding that fit into the foundation's goal of meaningfully impacting the well-being of young children in a sustainable way. Among the finalists is the John Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health's project to reclaim indigenous children's futures through home-visiting and intergenerational play spaces. 

Baylor University awarded a $2.5M John Templeton Foundation grant to bring psychology into theology

The Templeton Foundation grant will enable an interdisciplinary team of researchers in psychology, religion, and bioethics at Baylor to train theologians to incorporate methods and insight from psychological sciences into their work. The project is part of the Baylor Ethics Initiative, an interdisciplinary group of scholars undertaking research that connects Christian beliefs and practices to larger cultural and economic systems and questions. The three-year project will involve education, lab training, sub-grants and interdisciplinary collaboration to tackle deep questions concerning human nature, the purposes of human life, and how we ought to live in a new way.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Russell Sage Foundation – Research Grants

Grants providing up to $200,000 in funding for research assistance, data acquisition, data analysis, and investigator time. The foundation has particular interest in  analyses that make use of newly available data or demonstrates novel uses of existing data, to answer emerging or long-standing questions of interest in the foundation’s program areas.
Deadline: November 9, 2022

Meta – Foundational Integrity Research RFP

Meta is seeking social science research that has the potential to "significantly advance the community's understanding of the impact of technology on society," particularly on misinformation, divisive or hateful content, incitement, and digital platform trust. Projects will employ traditional social science methods or an innovative mix of methodological approaches or conduct comparative research and inclusion of non-Western regions that have experienced growth in social media platform use. Awards of $50,000 and $100,000 totaling $1M will be made. Contact Rich Levitt with questions or for proposal development support. 
Deadline: November 22, 2022. 

Kress Foundation – History of Art Grants

 
Supports scholarly projects that enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies.
Deadline: December 15, 2022

Covenant Foundation – Ignition or Signature Grant LOI 

Covenant supports Jewish education through innovative programming. The Foundation offers Ignition Grants (seed grants of $20,000 for one year) and Signature Grants ($150,000, typically over two years). This is a limited submission opportunity—organizations are allowed only one applicant. An internal review process will select the university's nominee for the LOI, due March 1, 2023. Please submit a three-paragraph description of your project and grant request, including known and/or anticipated funding sources, to Rich Levitt by December 15, 2022. The nominee will be notified by January 13, 2023. 

MasterCard Foundation and Carnegie Mellon announce a $10.8M commitment to engineering education in Africa

The boost to Carnegie Mellon University's College of Engineering program in Kigali, Rwanda, will benefit 125 academically talented but economically disadvantaged students from Sub-Saharan Africa, addressing the acute shortage of information and communication technology expertise needed to bring new technology to Africa. CMU will join a global network of 23 Mastercard Scholars Program partners committed to developing young African leaders. 

George Washington University receives Templeton World Charity Foundation grant for research on Shabbat rituals

The Collaborative for Applied Studies in Jewish Education (CASJE) at George Washington University has received a $500,000 grant from the Templeton World Charity Foundation (TWCF) to undertake a three-year research project exploring the impact of the Shabbat dinner ritual on human well-being. CASJE is partnering with OneTable, a national nonprofit promoting celebration of the Sabbath among young Jews, and with investigators at Brigham Young and Arizona State Universities, and the project is also supported by the Jim Joseph Foundation and the BeWell Initiative at Jewish Federations of North America.

Along with the other Templeton philanthropies (John Templeton Foundation and the Templeton Religion Trust), TWCF has a longstanding investment in advancing the science and policy of advancing "human flourishing," including an ongoing $60M grant program launched in 2020.  

University of California, San Francisco, and Altos Labs announce Ph.D. training partnership

Under the agreement, participating UCSF doctoral students will do their research at Altos Labs, a Silicon Valley startup focused on cellular rejuvenation programming, under the supervision of Altos scientists (many of whom are former UCSF faculty members). Altos will pay UCSF to cover each student's tuition, fees, and stipend, and has pledged $25M to the university's graduate program over five years. 

Columbia launches Center for Political Economy with $10M from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

The new center will be based at Columbia World Projects, established in 2017 on the university’s Manhattanville campus to house collaborations between Columbia faculty and outside organizations. The new initiative will work to combine scholarly expertise across disciplines to reimagine an economy that is more fair and inclusive. Faculty and practitioners will study critical issues including firm size, antitrust, work and labor, climate change economics, money, and finance. Those discussions will then inform research agendas and graduate training. Seed grants for research on under-examined issues will also be issued as well as support for postdoctoral scholars and issue publications.

Funding from the Hewlett Foundation comes as a part of a larger, $100M commitment to economic and policy research through the foundation’s Economy and Society Initiative. The new center joins a number of cohorts being created in the field of post-neoliberal economics. Including new centers at the Harvard Kennedy School, Howard University, MIT, and Johns Hopkins University, among others. 

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Russell Sage Foundation – Research Grants

Grants providing up to $200,000 in funding for research assistance, data acquisition, data analysis, and investigator time. The foundation has particular interest in  analyses that make use of newly available data or demonstrates novel uses of existing data, to answer emerging or long-standing questions of interest in the foundation’s program areas.
Deadline: November 9, 2022

Meta – Foundational Integrity Research RFP

Meta is seeking social science research that has the potential to "significantly advance the community's understanding of the impact of technology on society," particularly on misinformation, divisive or hateful content, incitement, and digital platform trust. Projects will employ traditional social science methods or an innovative mix of methodological approaches or conduct comparative research and inclusion of non-Western regions that have experienced growth in social media platform use. Awards of $50,000 and $100,000 totaling $1M will be made. Contact Rich Levitt with questions or for proposal development support. 
Deadline: November 22, 2022. 

Kress Foundation – History of Art Grants

 
Supports scholarly projects that enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies.
Deadline: December 15, 2022

Covenant Foundation – Ignition or Signature Grant LOI 

Covenant supports Jewish education through innovative programming. The Foundation offers Ignition Grants (seed grants of $20,000 for one year) and Signature Grants ($150,000, typically over two years). This is a limited submission opportunity—organizations are allowed only one applicant. An internal review process will select the university's nominee for the LOI, due March 1, 2023. Please submit a three-paragraph description of your project and grant request, including known and/or anticipated funding sources, to Rich Levitt by December 15, 2022. The nominee will be notified by January 13, 2023. 

Google, GE, ClearPath join with Princeton to found low-carbon research consortium

Princeton's Zero-Carbon Energy Systems Research and Optimization Laboratory (Zero Lab) has created a new coalition between corporations and researchers focused on scalable clean energy technologies. The consortium structure allows for pooled funding to maximize the research that can be done while being flexible enough to enable researchers to quickly shift to more important or interesting work. All while not having to wait for funding cycles or proposal calls. 

The companies also join the at the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment’s Princeton E-ffiliates Partnership, a corporate membership program that allows organizations to build collaborations with faculty members across a range of topics, including optimizing power architecture in data centers, securing the power grid and transforming waste streams into carbon-rich resources.

UNC Chapel Hill wins $900,000 Henry Luce Foundation grant to further Southeast Asian studies

The multi-year grant from the Luce Foundation Initiative on Southeast Asia will fund the expansion of UNC's Southeast Asian research and education offerings and aim to make the university the Asian Studies hub of the Southeast U.S. The funding comes as a result of intentional investment in pursuit of the Luce grant from the Office of the Vice Provost for Global Affairs (OVPGA). In recent years the university has used unrestricted funds to relaunch Vietnamese language instruction and hire post-docs in the Carolina Asia Center.

Northwestern and Toyota Research Institute announce collaboration on clean energy transition research

Northwestern and the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) have announced a collaboration to accelerate research into materials used for a clean energy transition. The research will be boosted by Northwestern’s AI trained to look through “Megalibraries” or libraries containing more new inorganic materials ever than ever collected before. Northwestern is positioned particularly well to work on this goal due to its more than 35 University Research Institutes and Centers (URICs) that foster interdisciplinary collaboration across the university.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

The Eppley Foundation for Research – Research Grants

Funding advanced, novel, scientific research by PhDs or MDs with an established record of publication in their specialties. Focusing on chemistry, physics, and biology. Recent grants range from $11,000 to $28,000.
Deadline: September 15, 2022

The Hertz Foundation - Hertz Fellowship

Supporting  college seniors, first-year graduate students, or individuals in a gap year preparing to apply to graduate school, who intend to pursue a PhD in the applied physical and biological sciences, mathematics, or engineering. Awards of up to $250,000 with multiple funding options.
Deadline: October 28, 2022

Russell Sage Foundation – Research Grants

Grants providing up to $200,000 in funding for research assistance, data acquisition, data analysis, and investigator time. The foundation has particular interest in  analyses that make use of newly available data or demonstrates novel uses of existing data, to answer emerging or long-standing questions of interest in the foundation’s program areas.
Deadline: November 9, 2022

Brandeis investigators win Simons Foundation awards

The Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI) is investing $6.74 million in seven teams over three years to form the Autism Rat Models Consortium, to advance the development and study of rat models of autism spectrum disorder. Brandeis will host two of the teams, headed by Shantanu Jadhav (Biology) and Gina Turrigiano (Biology).

Mastercard funds UChicago to advance diversity in data science

A $4.6M grant from the Mastercard Impact Fund to data.org will fund the University of Chicago's Data Science Institute to lead a consortium of higher education partners, including HBCUs, MSIs, and HSIs, tasked with building a pipeline of diverse data scientists and creating a shared curriculum, including a Data Science Experiential Learning Playbook. The effort is part of data.org's Capacity Accelerator Network (CAN), which aims to train a million purpose-driven data professionals in the next decade.

Wellcome commits an additional $70M to BU’s CARB-X

The new funding comes as part of a ten-year, $370 million package from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest biomedical research philanthropies. Funding from Wellcome and HHS launched CARB-X at BU in 2016, and the renewed support will advance CARB-X’s mission to develop new antibacterial therapies, preventatives, and diagnostics.

University of Idaho receives $1M gift from Chobani Yogurt

The university's Center for Agriculture, Food, and Environment will fund research and education that advances a sustainable future for the U.S. dairy industry, including sustainable dairies, livestock operations, crop production, and food processing. Chobani’s Twin Falls, Idaho plant is the world’s largest yogurt production facility. The Chobani gift will support the construction of the largest research dairy in the nation, with construction starting this month, at a total estimated cost of $22.5 million.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation – Young Investigator Program

Provides research support to young chemistry and life sciences, faculty in the early stages of their academic career. As part of the program, applications are encouraged to propose innovative advances in their fields, which is also distinct from previous research. Typical projects are funded for four years in the range of $600,000 ($150,000 annually).
Deadline: August 1, 2022

Burroughs Wellcome Fund – Investigator Award

The Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) Award provides $500,000 over five years to support accomplished investigators at the assistant professor level to study pathogenesis, with a focus on the interplay between human and microbial biology. Shedding light on how human and microbial systems are affected by their encounters.
Pre-proposal Deadline: July 14, 2022

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation - Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award

Supporting the next generation of creative, “high risk/high reward” ideas that have the potential to impact our understanding and approaches to the diagnosis and/or treatment of cancer. This award is available to tenure-track assistant professors for $400,000 over the first two years, with the opportunity for up to two additional years of funding.
Deadline: July 1, 2022

Research Corporation for Science Advancement - The Cottrell Scholar Award

Develops outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. Cottrell Scholar Awards are for $100,000 over three years. Eligible applicants are tenure-track faculty members whose primary appointment is in a department of astronomy, chemistry or physics and who started their first tenure-track appointment in calendar year 2019.
Deadline: July 1, 2022

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

Amazon and John Hopkins announce new AI research collaboration

The collaboration, named Amazon Initiative for Interactive AI (AI2AI), will emphasize research on machine learning, computer vision, and natural language understanding. Sanjeev Khudanpur, associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will serve as the founding director of the initiative. Amazon’s funding comes in the form of fellowships awarded annually to Ph.D. students enrolled in the Whiting School of Engineering and collaborative research projects focused on the acceleration of AI research.

Russell Sage Foundation announces new grantees, increases grant limits

This month, 11 projects led by 17 investigators from 15 institutions were awarded Presidential Authority Awards and Trustee Grants. In a change, RSF Trustee Grants are now capped at $200,000, including 15% indirect, over two years, and Presidential Authority Awards are capped at $50,000, no indirect, over two years. For research projects that require data gathering, gaining access to proprietary data, or when the budget includes salary support for multiple assistant professor PIs, applicants may request up to $75,000, no indirect. Next deadline: July 27, 2022.

New MIT-led program bolsters innovation in AI hardware

The new AI hardware research program is an industry collaboration aimed at solving problems in AI hardware manufacturing, research, and design. The program plans to fix the current unsustainable energy costs related to cutting-edge AI technology. These new energy-efficient systems, in turn, will demand innovations “across the entire abstractions stack, from materials and devices to systems and software.” The MIT School of Engineering and MIT Schwarzman College of Computing will work in tandem with five inaugural industry members, including Amazon, Analog Devices, and NTT Research.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

The Vilcek Foundation – Prizes for Creative Promise

Three prizes of $50,000 each to immigrant musicians or biomedical scientists, 38 years old or younger, who demonstrate outstanding early achievement. Eligible work may be in basic, applied, and/or translational biomedical science.
Deadline: June 10, 2022

The Smith Richardson Foundation - Strategy and Policy Fellows Grant

Supporting young scholars and policy thinkers on American foreign policy; international relations; international security; military policy; and diplomatic and military history. The Foundation will award at least three research grants of $60,000 each for recipients to research and write a book.
Deadline: June 17, 2022

The Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation - Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award

Supporting the next generation of creative, “high risk/high reward” ideas that have the potential to impact our understanding and approaches to the diagnosis and/or treatment of cancer. This award is available to tenure-track assistant professors for $400,000 over the first two years, with the opportunity for up to two additional years of funding.
Deadline: July 1, 2022

Research Corporation for Science Advancement - The Cottrell Scholar Award 

Developing outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. Cottrell Scholar Awards are for $100,000 over three years. Eligible applicants are tenure-track faculty members with primary appointment in a department of astronomy, chemistry or physics and who started their first tenure-track appointment in calendar year 2019.
Deadline: July 1, 2022

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

Meta funds AR/VR research at Cornell

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, will give Cornell $1.8M over two years, split between the Bowers College of Computing and Information Science and the XR Collaboratory, Cornell Tech’s AR/VR incubator. The grant will support research, teaching, and diverse undergraduate opportunities in the field of augmented reality. The research includes the areas of telehealth, infrastructure, and facial recognition technology.

Schmidt Futures commits $125M to support AI research

The five-year commitment from Eric and Wendy Schmidt’s foundation will fund AI2050, an effort to ensure that AI becomes a maximally beneficial force in human society by 2050. AI2050 Fellows will be investigators from all over the world, at various career stages, pursuing ambitious research that addresses an evolving list of questions—hard problems to be solved and opportunities to seize. The nomination approach and instructions for fellows will be shared in the coming months. The initiative aims to name its next round of AI2050 Fellows later this year.

FORE awards $10.9M for efforts to prevent opioid and substance use disorders in families and children

The Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts has awarded nine, three-year grants ranging from $375,000 to $1.5M to support improved or expanded evidence-based prevention strategies targeting families and children at highest risk. Grantees include the universities of New Mexico, Washington, and Florida. For those interested in learning more about family-focused prevention, FORE is funding a workshop in Washington, D.C., on May 5^th and 6^th.

Israeli food tech startup teams with Tufts for Petri dish fish

Wanda Fish, a new Israeli food-tech startup founded in late 2021, is partnering with Tufts University on advanced research into developing cultivated fish. The company is tapping into the research of Dr. David Kaplan, a professor of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts. The startup has exclusive rights to Kaplan’s fish cultivation IP and a separate deal to support his research into cellular agriculture-based production of fish tissue. With $3M in pre-seed funding, Wanda Fish is working to create proprietary, affordable cell-based finless fish fillets of varying species without burdening the ecosystem.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

The Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund- Scientific Research Grant Program

The Mark Foundation – Emerging Leader Awards

$750,000 in total over a three-year term to support innovative cancer research. Grants are awarded to outstanding, early-career investigators for high-impact, high-risk projects. All applicants must be employed by a U.S. or Canadian non-profit academic institution and hold an MD, PhD or their equivalent. Deadline: May 2, 2022

The Vilcek Foundation – Prizes for Creative Promise

Three prizes of $50,000 each to immigrant musicians or biomedical scientists, 38 years old or younger, who demonstrate outstanding early achievement. Eligible work may be in basic, applied, and/or translational biomedical science. Deadline: June 10, 2022
 
The Smith Richardson Foundation - Strategy and Policy Fellows Grant

Supporting young scholars and policy thinkers on American foreign policy; international relations; international security; military policy; and diplomatic and military history. The Foundation will award at least three research grants of $60,000 each for recipients to research and write a book. Deadline: June 17, 2022

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group funds 2022 cohort of Allen Distinguished Investigators

Hewlett and Omidyar fund effort to rethink capitalism

RCSA and Sloan Foundation award over $1.2M for negative emissions research

Sloan Foundation funds Brandeis-Hampton STEM Pathway partnership

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation has announced 20 grants totaling nearly $5M to fund partnerships between Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and other educational institutions to create, expand, or strengthen pathways into STEM graduate study by Black, Indigenous, and Latina/o students.  Hampton University received a $250,000 seed grant to expand its existing partnership with the Brandeis MRSEC to build new pathways for Hampton undergraduates into STEM-intensive master’s programs at Brandeis.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

The XPRIZE Foundation - Racial Equity Alliance

The Racial Equity Alliance (REA) is a coalition of industrial, philanthropic, and nonprofit partners accelerating solutions for racial, social, and economic justice in the United States. The REA is currently designing high-impact incentive competitions and projects across seven primary tracks of work: Economic Empowerment, Education, Health, Food Security, Environment, Workplace Equity and Criminal Justice Reform. First up is the Ideas Competition, a four-month, $50,000 challenge to generate ideas for future competitions with the goal of advancing education equity in the United States.  Deadline: March 31, 2022

The Human Frontier Science Program – Postdoctoral Fellowship Programs

Funding for frontier, potentially transformative research in life sciences. Two different types of fellowships are available. Long-Term and Cross-Disciplinary. Applications for high-risk projects are particularly encouraged. Letter of Intent Deadline: May 18, 2022.

The Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund- Scientific Research Grant Program

Awards two-year grants of up to $160,000 to support innovative clinical, health, and social service system research and demonstration projects in the greater Boston area designed to improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with disabilities. Deadline: April 6, 2022.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

Henry Luce Foundation funds Jews of Color Initiative at UC Boulder

Led by University of Colorado Boulder Assistant Professor Samira Mehta, the Jews of Color initiative will work to “recover, study and elevate” voices of Jews of color in the United States. The $250,000 grant will support collaboration among scholars, artists, and activists across a diverse community to create events, programming, and creative projects on topics including color, racism, white supremacy, and American Jewish life.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation awards $800k grant to Brandeis Institute for Economic and Racial Equity

Over the next two years, IERE will work with the Federation of Southern Cooperatives to understand the impact of the Black Farmers Lawsuits, Pigford v. Glickman (1999) and In re Black Farmers Discrimination Litigation (2011), a group civil rights lawsuits filed by Black farmers against the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The research teams, led by Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy Tom Shapiro and Cornelius Blanding, executive director of FSC, will investigate the experiences of Pigford claimants during and after the case, with an eye towards policy today.

Heller team receives $2M W.K. Kellogg grant to further child opportunity research

The Institute for Child, Youth, and Family Policy at the Heller School has received an 18-month, $2 million grant from the Kellogg Foundation to build upon the Child Opportunity Index (COI). The COI is a comprehensive research and reporting database that has become a "vital data tool for researchers, policymakers, and communities across the nation that are committed to improving children's well-being." This funding will allow the team to build infrastructure to expand and update the COI.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Biomedical Science

The Charles A. King Trust - Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Program (Basic)

Funding postdoctoral fellows and physician-scientists in non-profit academic, medical or research institutions in Massachusetts. Two-year grants ranging from $111,520 to $130,072 are available in Basic Sciences and Clinical/Health Services. Deadline: March 2, 2022.

The Charles H. Hood Foundation - Child Health Research Awards Program

Supports newly independent faculty (Ph.D. or physician-scientists) in New England pursuing hypothesis-driven clinical, basic science, public health, health services research, and epidemiology projects focused on child health. Five, two-year $165,000 awards are available. Deadline: March 28, 2022.

Natural Sciences

The Eppley Foundation for Research - Advanced Sciences Research Grant Program

Supports Ph.Ds or MDs with an established record of publication in specific areas of interest, including innovative medical investigations, climate change, and whole ecosystem studies. In the U.S., and abroad. Grants ranging from $10,000-$35,000 are available. Deadline: March 15, 2022. 

The Human Frontier Science Program - HFSP Research Grant Program

 Funding innovative basic research into fundamental biological problems with emphasis placed on novel and interdisciplinary approaches that involve scientific exchanges across national and disciplinary boundaries. $450,000 grants are available. Deadline: March 24, 2022.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

John Templeton Foundation Awards $14.5M to Develop Foundations for Science of Purpose

Led by University of Minnesota philosopher Alan Love, the Agency, Directionality & Function Project will develop a framework for describing, modeling, and measuring the intentionality of physical systems, laying the foundations for a “science of purpose”. The grant will fund a highly interdisciplinary group of 80 investigators from all over the world (including scientists, philosophers, historians, and mathematicians) organized into seven thematic clusters, pursuing research on teleology in evolution, genomics, ecology, and other life sciences fields. The project is currently soliciting papers for a topical issue of Synthese and recruiting post-doc candidates. 

Burroughs Wellcome Fund Establishes $1M Seed Fund for Climate Change and Human Health Research

Seeking to unite fields of study that can address climate change’s impact on human health, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund announced the first round of awardees from its Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grant Fund. These inaugural research grants include a project that aligns a university, local and federal agencies, and public schools to investigate heat mapping; a collaboration between a university and the EPA to examine the role of environmental chemicals on early births; and support for early career earth and life scientists who study climate and health. Proposals for grants between $2,500-50,000 will be accepted quarterly through August 30, 2023; next deadline is January 10, 2022.

XPRIZE Awards $5M in the Carbon Removal Student Competition

Funded as part of a $100M commitment from the Musk Foundation, the awards will allow students to test innovations that scale carbon extraction at the gigaton level besides reducing barriers to entry for the main XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition. The competition featured two tracks—Carbon Dioxide Removal Demonstrations ($250,000 awards) and Measurement, Reporting, and Verification Technologies ($100,000)—and selected 23 projects from ten countries representing 31 institutions, including Duke, Stanford, University of Toronto, and Northeastern. 

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Jewish Studies

Ilia Salita Excellence in Research Award

The inaugural Ilia Salita ERA will provide $15,000 for creative research projects with broad appeal that relate to issues facing the modern Jewish community. Preference will be given to projects that tackle understudied or underserviced populations or issues in the Jewish world and/or issues of Jewish unity, Israel-Diaspora dialogue, Jewish engagement, or Russian-speaking Jews. Graduate students are encouraged to apply. Awardees will receive $15,000 as well as access to donors, media, and interested organizations. Nominations, including self-nominations, are due Dec. 13, 2021.

Faculty Study Abroad

Whiting Foundation Fellowships for Higher Education

Any faculty members wishing to “study abroad or at some location other than that with which they are most closely associated” so as to “improve and enhance the quality of their instruction” are invited to apply for the Whiting Foundation Fellowship. Awards are typically $3-6,000. For questions or assistance, please work with Rich Levitt in the Corporate and Foundation Relations Office. The deadline is Jan. 7, 2022.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Announces 2021 Inventor Fellows

Five young scientists, committed to developing new tools and technologies that promise to accelerate progress in the foundation’s areas of interest (scientific discovery, environmental conservation and patient care), will each receive $675,000 over three years plus $50,000 annually from their institutions. In addition to benefitting from a network of scientist-inventors, Fellows are provided guidance from activate.org, which bridges the gap between laboratory research and the market.

Barr Foundation Awards Nearly $31 Million for Arts, Climate, and Education

In its third quarter cycle, the Barr Foundation supported over 100 organizations and institutions, demonstrating its commitment to the Boston area across its core program areas. Climate-related awards included a two-year, $715,000 grant to Olin College of Engineering to support a partnership with Alternatives for Community and Environment to develop a community-driven air justice model in Roxbury. 

With a $1.8 Million Investment, Siemens and Georgia Tech Launch Center of Excellence for Simulation and Digital Twin

Based at Georgia Tech’s Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory, the new Center will prepare STEM undergraduate and graduate students to enter the field of computational, model-driven engineering of complex infrastructure systems and enhance the role of digital engineering for buildings and other infrastructure, communities, and mobility. The Center will sponsor student grand challenges, “living lab” applied experiences, Ph.D. fellowships, and other research pursuits. Siemens is building a Research and Innovation Ecosystem Program—comprised of Atlanta, the Bay Area, Greater Boston, the Industrial Midwest—to deepen engagement with universities and research institutes.

MIT and Amazon Establish “Science Hub” to Expand Participation in AI and Robotics

Amazon and the Schwartzman College of Computing are pushing to accelerate AI and robotics research and make it more accessible through research, education, and outreach. Graduate and post-doctoral fellowships, events, research symposia, and sponsored research for projects of MIT faculty will be the hallmarks of the Science Hub. This announcement is part of Amazon’s significant investment in Massachusetts, including the $40 million Amazon Robotics innovation center in Westborough that will contain engineering, manufacturing, and other testing teams and its Boston Tech Hub, which is the company’s central address for software development, AI, and machine learning.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Jewish Studies

Ilia Salita Excellence in Research Award

The inaugural Ilia Salita ERA will provide $15,000 for creative research projects with broad appeal that relate to issues facing the modern Jewish community. Preference will be given to projects that tackle understudied or underserviced populations or issues in the Jewish world and/or issues of Jewish unity, Israel-Diaspora dialogue, Jewish engagement, or Russian-speaking Jews. Nominations, including self-nominations, are due Dec. 13, 2021.

Faculty Study Abroad

Whiting Foundation Fellowships for Higher Education

Any faculty members wishing to “study abroad or at some location other than that with which they are most closely associated” so as to “improve and enhance the quality of their instruction” are invited to apply for the Whiting Foundation Fellowship. Awards are typically $3-6,000. For questions or assistance, please work with Rich Levitt in the Corporate and Foundation Relations Office. The Deadline is Jan. 7, 2022.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

Templeton World Charity Foundation Invests $60M to Study Human Flourishing

TWCF will fund 11 projects that will define “Grand Challenges in Human Flourishing” and seek to advance our scientific understanding of and ability to promote physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being. Grantees came from multiple fields, including neuroscience, engineering, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy, and are based at institutions in several countries, to support the comparative study of human flourishing across diverse disciplines, cultures, ages, populations, and settings. The awards are the outcome of a September 2020 RFI.

Carnegie Corporation of New York Awards $3.6M for New Multilateral Frameworks

Carnegie recently made 11 grants that reimagine international security and realign America’s domestic and foreign interests. Spanning a range of topics—climate change, terrorism, migration, federal spending, and space—funded projects will offer recommendations for strengthening multilateral institutions and policies. Befitting Carnegie’s expansive philanthropic agenda, grantees are exploring impacts on local communities as well as global systems, testing new approaches that promote data collection, accountability, equity, and the rule of law. Over 300 organizations responded to the January 2021 RFP from the foundation’s International Peace and Security program.

Philanthropic Partners Present $1.1M for Scialog Fellows to Study Planetary Signatures of Life

Each Scialog Fellow—20 scientists in eight teams—received $55,000 to pursue high-risk, high-reward research into fundamental questions about the possibility of extraterrestrial life. Each team is being funded by one or more of several funding partners (Kavli Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, Research Corporation for Science Advancement, and NASA) to advance our understanding of planetary habitability and the effects of life on planets, and our ability to detect those signatures in our solar system and on exoplanets.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Art History

The Kress Foundation History of Art Grants Program supports scholarly projects that enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies. The deadline for LOIs is Dec. 15.

Biomedical Science

The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program provides funding and support to help scholars build their network and develop essential skills to become the next generation of research leaders. Researchers within the first five years of their first academic appointment are eligible to apply. The two-year award provides $100,000 in research support. The deadline for applications is Oct. 27.

Neuroscience

The McKnight Foundation supports innovative research in neuroscience, seeking research which shows promise in bringing society closer to prevention, treatments, and cures. Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Awards provide $200,000 over two years for scientists working on the development of novel and creative approaches to understanding brain function. The deadline for LOIs is Dec. 6. Scholar Awards provide $225,000 over three years to encourage emerging neuroscientists to focus on disorders of learning and memory. The deadline for applications is Jan. 10.

Social Sciences

The Russell Sage Foundation offers several opportunities. The Foundation's core programs include Social, Political, and Economic Inequality; Future of Work; and Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context. Special initiatives include research on Covid-19 and the resulting recession and research on systemic racial inequality and/or recent mass protests. The deadline for LOIs is Nov. 10.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

Wellcome Leap Selects Participants for $55m Delta Tissue Program

Wellcome Leap, the US-based rapid innovation arm of the UK's Wellcome Trust selected 16 investigators from universities and research institutions worldwide to collaborate in a $55 million effort to develop platforms—so-called “tissue time machines”—that can profile and predict transitions between tissue states in various diseases. These platforms will aim to provide more widely accessible diagnostic tools to academic centers, start-ups, etc., and will initially focus on three disease models: tuberculosis, triple negative breast cancer, and glioblastoma multiform.
 

Wellcome Leap aims to be “the global ARPA for human health” and has adopted what it sees as DARPA’s model of innovation: temporary, interdisciplinary teams, funded at scale over a limited project period, to tackle an ambitious challenge in health. Competitions/challenges are run on accelerated timelines (3.5 months from call to award) with low bars of entry.

Mellon Foundation Supports Hopkins Digital Humanities Projects for Racial Equity

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Public Knowledge program has awarded Johns Hopkins University a $300,000 planning grant for Black Beyond Data: Computational Humanities and Social Sciences Laboratory for Black Digital Humanities. Starting with three projects, the “lab” will develop new ways to collect, curate, and visualize data about Black life across the humanities, social sciences, and medicine and will intentionally use computational technology to engage Black communities in creating and managing their own data.
 
Under new president Elizabeth Alexander, the country’s largest private funder of the arts and humanities in higher education has moved to prioritize social justice in all of its grantmaking.

UC Boulder Named Top 5 Finalist for $10M Climate Challenge Grant

Lever for Change, an initiative of the Macarthur Foundation, recently named UC Boulder’s Building with Biomass project a finalist for its $10 million 2030 Climate Challenge prize. The project proposes to convert buildings to carbon sinks by using only biogenic and reduced-carbon emission materials in construction. UC’s was one of 68 proposals evaluated during a three-month process, and though it did not win the big prize, it was one of five runners-up that Lever for Change will promote to other philanthropists through its Bold Solutions Network.

Pew Charitable Trust Awards $6.6M to Researchers in the Biomedical Sciences

The 22 young scientists named 2021 Pew Biomedical Scholars will receive $300,000 over a four-year period. Over a thousand scientists have received this award since 1985, including four scholars from Brandeis. The 2021 cohort includes Brandeis’ Alexandre Bisson, assistant professor of biology, who will pursue research on probing the molecular mechanisms through which single-celled organisms can radically change their shape. Other funded research topics include scientists exploring the genetic evolution of cancer cells, how regulatory RNAs influence embryonic development, and how animals select specific types of foods for their nutritional needs.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Biological and Physical Sciences

The Eppley Foundation for Research funds innovative, risky scientific research in "pure or applied science…in chemistry, physics, and biology," with awards ranging between $10,000 and $35,000. Recent grants reflect an interest in ecology and environmental science. Brief LOIs should be received by September 15.

Neuroscience

The Whitehall Foundation funds scholarly research in neuroscience through research grants and grants-in-aid. Research grants offer between $90,000 and $225,000 for up to three years, and grants-in-aid offer $30,000 over a one-year period. The foundation emphasizes the support of young scientists at the beginning of their careers and productive senior scientists who wish to move into new fields of interest. The deadline for LOIs for both grants is October 1.

Social Sciences

The Russell Sage Foundation's Special Initiatives grants provide up to $175,000 over two years, primarily for graduate assistants and research costs. Principal Investigators can get a one-month summer salary or, for non-faculty researchers, up to $20,000/yr for salary support. The deadline for LOI submissions is November 10.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

Carnegie Corporation Awards Over $5 Million to New Carnegie Fellows

The 26 new Andrew Carnegie Fellows will each receive $200,000 for up to two years to advance research in the humanities and social sciences that addresses important and enduring issues confronting our society. Their areas of research include: reducing inequality in education; the influence of native women on indigenous democracies; the impact of population changes on global prosperity and security; American civic participation; social welfare reform in sub-Saharan Africa; and the potential for geological areas and natural landforms to have legal rights independent from humans.

Each fall, the Carnegie Corporation solicits fellowship nominations from university presidents and other leaders. Since 2015, Carnegie has invested over $43 million in 216 Fellows, including Brandeis Professor of Anthropology Sarah Lamb (2019).

New President of the Boston Foundation Takes the Helm

Dr. M. Lee Pelton, President of Emerson College since 2011, joins the Boston Foundation effective June 1. Pelton succeeds Paul Grogan, who led TBF for two decades. A celebrated scholar and civic leader, last June he was appointed head of the Boston Racial Equity Fund by then-Mayor Marty Walsh, and serves on the board of a number of organizations dedicated to social justice and racial equity.

Tencent and Edinburgh Sign MoU to Collaborate on Research and Education

Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s largest providers of cloud computing services, will give the University of Edinburgh Bayes Centre support for research and education programs through free access to its cloud offerings, technical expertise, and training programs. A series of initiatives will be launched to focus on technical fields such as Data Science & AI and Financial Technologies, while digital and classroom training will be further developed to allow for individualized learning pace and increased cloud skill development. Tencent also recently signed an MoU with National University of Singapore and UNESCO’s Global Education Coalition.

Thermo-Fisher Gives SUNY Buffalo $4.8 million for STEM Education

A NY State-funded economic incentive program joins UB’s Buffalo Institute for Genomics and Data Analytics (BIG) with Thermo Fisher Scientific to “generate jobs and expand the local life sciences sector.” The infusion will fund the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment and support faculty research programs in genomics, proteomics and big data analytics. It will also provide laboratory space for Thermo Fisher making experiential internships and programs with industry partners more accessible. Since 2019, more than 50% of the 490 new jobs committed by BIG and their industry partners has been achieved.

Searle Scholars Program Names 2021 Searle Scholars

The 15 young assistant professors will each receive $300,000 in flexible funding over the next three years to support biomedical research. Research topics of the new class include how oxygen levels contribute to age-associated conditions, the relationship between the proteomic network and the immune system’s response to external pathogens, how the brain learns complex behaviors in music and athletics, and how a fly brain adjusts wing movements to maintain stable flight. Brandeis is invited to make up to two nominations to the program each spring, and past Brandeis awardees include Jeff Gelles, Liz Hedstrom, Piali Sengupta, and most recently Amy Lee (2017).

Funding Opportunities

Johns Hopkins University Funding Opportunities Now on CFR Site

Check out our “For Faculty and Staff” page to access a new, continuously updated repository of well over 500 federal and private funding opportunities intended for late postdoctoral investigators and early-career faculty, usually those at or below the rank of assistant professor. The database is maintained by Johns Hopkins University and available as a fully-searchable Excel sheet download.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Astronomy/Chemistry/Physics

The Cottrell Scholar Award develops outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. Cottrell Scholar Awards are for three-year projects in the amount of $100,000. Eligible applicants are tenure-track faculty members whose primary appointment is in a department of astronomy, chemistry or physics, and who started their first tenure-track appointment anytime in the calendar year 2018. The deadline for proposals is July 1.

Biomedical Science

The Vilcek Foundation will award three Prizes for Creative Promise of $50,000 each to immigrant biomedical scientists born on or after Jan. 1, 1983 who demonstrate outstanding early achievement. Eligible work may be in basic, applied and/or translational biomedical science. The deadline for applications is June 11.

The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation provides research support to young chemistry and life sciences faculty in the early stages of their academic career. As part of the Beckman Young Investigator Program, applications are encouraged to propose innovative advances in their fields, which is also distinct from previous research. Typical projects are funded for four years up to $750,000. The deadline for LOIs is August 2.

Cancer Research

The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award supports the next generation of creative, “high risk/high reward” ideas that have the potential to impact our understanding and approaches to the diagnosis and/or treatment of cancer. This award is available to tenure-track assistant professors for $400,000 over the first two years, with the opportunity for up to two additional years of funding. The deadline for applications is July 1.

Foreign Policy

The Smith Richardson Foundation sponsors an annual Strategy and Policy Fellows grant competition to support young scholars and policy thinkers on: American foreign policy; international relations; international security; military policy; and diplomatic and military history. The Foundation will award at least three research grants of $60,000 each for recipients to research and write a book. The deadline for applications is June 18.

Jewish Studies

The Center for Entrepreneurial Jewish Philanthropy (CEJP) is accepting proposals for their Donor Summit on Combating Antisemitism. Summit projects range from $100,000-400,000 and follow criteria including critical need, meaningful impact, effective strategies, and sustainability among others. Three separate Zoom information sessions have been scheduled to assist with the proposal process. Rich Levitt is also available to assist. The deadline for Proposals is June 11.

Social Sciences

The Russell Sage Foundation is accepting applications for Visiting Scholars and Visiting Researchers fellowships. Besides supporting candidates' intellectual pursuits, RSF seeks to promote interdisciplinary dialogue among social scientists, journalists, and foundation staff and foster professional research collaborations. The deadline for applications is June 24.

The William T. Grant Foundation Research Grants program supports theory-building and empirical research projects on reducing inequality or improving the use of research evidence. Research grants on reducing inequality typically range from $100,000 to $600,000 and cover two to three years of support. Improving the use of research evidence grants will range from $100,000 to $1 million and cover two to four years of support. The deadline for LOIs is August 4.

The Russell Sage Foundation Research Grant provide a maximum of $150,000 over two years to support innovative projects that collect or analyze new data to illuminate issues that are highly relevant to the foundation’s program areas of behavioral economics; race, ethnicity, and immigration; social inequality; and immigration and immigrant integration. The foundation encourages projects that are interdisciplinary and combine both quantitative and qualitative research. The deadline for LOIs is July 28.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

John Templeton Foundation Awards Three Grants for Inter-Disciplinary, Multi-Institutional Projects

The Templeton Foundation granted Boston College $4.7 million for three projects—two in the Psychology Department and one in the Philosophy Department. The projects explore moral reasoning, trust in God, and the development of virtuous behavior in children, joining together faculty from Harvard, MIT, and Boston University with colleagues in Boston College’s Cooperation Lab, Morality Lab, and Virtue Project. To learn more about the Templeton Foundation and a recently-released RFP, scroll to Funding Opportunities below.

Allen Frontiers Group Names New Distinguished Investigator Cohort

A $6 million/three-year commitment will support four research groups pursuing the relationship between the immune system and metabolism, advancing our understanding of energy production in immune cells, developing targeted therapies, and testing new technologies. This set of projects expands the roster of Allen Distinguished Investigators with ten new researchers representing six universities along with a hospital, government agency, and independent research organization.

Carnegie Corporation Awards 27 Grants Totaling Nearly $14 Million

Carnegie Corporation announced new grantees in its International and National Programs. Among the educational institutions receiving awards include University of Maryland Foundation ($400,000 over 18 months to continue development of Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics) and Bank Street College of Education ($500,000 over 18 months to advance ongoing work in improving access and quality of early childhood education). Many grants were made for general support.

Carnegie President and former Brandeis Trustee Vartan Gregorian (HHL ’13) passed away last month.

New Digital Marketplace Connects Scientists with Industry Research Funding

Halo, a start-up currently housed at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Incubator, invites Brandeis scientists to review and apply for research funding from industry partners like Reckitt Benckiser, PepsiCo, Bayer Agriculture, Georgia Pacific, and Baxter. As an RFP clearinghouse, Halo promotes corporate partners’ research opportunities to which university researchers/entrepreneurs at all levels may respond. Research areas currently include adhesives, water, packaging, and agriculture, though these are expected to grow as Halo expands its platform and partnerships. Register to receive RFPs or facilitate potential projects.

Funding Opportunity

The John Templeton Foundation announced a new competition, Character Through Community, which will invest $15 million in character-focused programs and institutions, emphasizing the role of existing communities of practice in cultivating “good character” qualities and virtues within groups of at least 1,000 individuals.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Astronomy/Chemistry/Physics

The Cottrell Scholar Award develops outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. Cottrell Scholar Awards are for $100,000 over three years. Eligible applicants are tenure-track faculty members whose primary appointment is in a department of astronomy, chemistry or physics and who started their first tenure-track appointment in calendar year 2018. The deadline for proposals is July 1.

Biomedical Science

The Vilcek Foundation will award three Prizes for Creative Promise of $50,000 each to immigrant biomedical scientists born on or after Jan. 1, 1983 who demonstrate outstanding early achievement. Eligible work may be in basic, applied and/or translational biomedical science. The deadline for applications is June 11.

Social Sciences

The Russell Sage Foundation is accepting applications for Visiting Scholars and Visiting Researchers fellowships. Besides supporting candidates' intellectual pursuits, RSF seeks to promote interdisciplinary dialogue among social scientists, journalists, and foundation staff and foster professional research collaborations. The deadline for applications is June 24.

View more opportunities on our RFP calendar.

News

Mellon Foundation Awards $4.9M to Examine Native American Dispossession and Racial Slavery Through Maritime History

This three-year, multi-disciplinary project, made possible through the foundation's Just Futures Initiative is a partnership between Brown University, Williams College, and Mystic Maritime Museum. The project will examine the traumas and injustices upon which New England's mythological "shining city on a hill" was built. In addition to a Museum exhibition, the partners will establish a new research cluster housed at Brown's Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice while also generating new scholarship, student experiences, K-12 educational programs, and public events.

Research Corporation for Science Advancement Names 2021 Cottrell Scholars

The new class of 25 Cottrell teacher-scholars hail from 14 states and Canada and represent 11 AAU institutions. These chemists, physicists, and astronomers integrate science education and research, reflecting RCSA's commitment to the student experience. Cottrell Scholars benefit from a networked community as well as additional funding opportunities as their careers progress. The next cycle for Cottrell Scholars opens March 1, 2021 and proposals are due July 1, 2021.

MacArthur Foundation Announces Lever for Change Climate Challenge Finalists

The Carbon Leadership Forum, an alliance of the Univ. of Washington and Univ. of Colorado at Boulder, is among five finalists in the $10 million Climate Challenge, an initiative seeking to decarbonize transportation, buildings, and industry by 2030. The Forum proposes to convert buildings into carbon sinks through the use of biogenic materials and reduce emissions in all other building materials. Each of the finalists is also promoted by Macarthur's Bold Solutions Network, which matches nonprofits and social enterprises with donors and funding.

McDonnell Foundation Injects $6M into Cognitive and Neural Science and Complex Systems Research

The 21st Century Science Initiative announced new awards to grantees including Temple, Tulane, and five AAU members, bringing total 2020 grants to $18.5 million. In 2020, JSMF inaugurated the Opportunity Awards funding new research studying human behavior across the lifespan using more naturalistic designs and dynamic measures better to reflect our day-to-day behavior. 

Allen Frontiers Group Names Collaborations Studying Immunometabolism

Four teams of newly appointed Allen Distinguished Investigators each received $1.5 million over three years to investigate the complex relationship between energy metabolism and the immune system. The new research projects include research on human disease, basic biology of the mammalian immune system, and technology development that could impact many areas of immunology and metabolism research.

Ruderman Family Foundation Issues Call for Concepts

The Ruderman Family Foundation is undertaking a strategic repositioning of its philanthropic priorities. The Foundation has decided to wind down its focus on inclusion and disability policy and is now soliciting ideas for "what society needs most". This is an open call, and interested applicants need not submit for an internal review. Contact CFR with questions. Concepts are due Mar. 31.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Astrophysics

In partnership with The Gruber Foundation, the International Astronomical Union has created the GF Fellowship to promote cosmology and other branches of astronomy. The GF Fellowship awards $75,000 to early-career astrophysicists working in any field. Researchers in the last months of the Ph.D. who have already received a contract for a post-doctoral position, or post-docs in their first year of the appointment, are encouraged to apply. The application deadline is Mar. 31.

Biomedical Sciences

The Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund awards two-year grants of up to $160,000 to support innovative clinical, health, and social service system research and demonstration projects in the greater Boston area designed to improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with disabilities. The deadline for applications is Apr. 7.
 
The Eppley Foundation for Research funds advanced, novel research in biological and physical sciences. Particular areas of interest include innovative medical investigations, endangered species and ecosystems in the U.S. and abroad, and climate change. Past grants have been between $10,000 and $35,000. The Foundation will fund an investigation in its entirety or a portion of a larger project. The LOI deadline is Mar. 15.

The Human Frontier Science Program is awarding three-year grants of up to $465,000 per year for teams of scientists from different countries with innovative approaches to questions that cannot be answered by individual labs. Emphasis is placed on novel collaborations that bring together scientists from different disciplines to focus life sciences problems. Young Investigators Grants are awarded to teams within the first five years after obtaining an independent laboratory (e.g. assistant professor, lecturer or equivalent). Program Grants are awarded to teams of independent researchers at any stage of their careers. The LOI deadline is Mar. 30.

Neuroscience

The Whitehall Foundation funds research in neuroscience. Research grants offer between $90,000 and $225,000 for up to three years, and grants-in-aid offer $30,000 over one year. The foundation emphasizes the support of young scientists at the beginning of their careers and productive senior scientists who wish to move into new fields. The LOI deadline is Apr. 15.

Social Science

The Russell Sage Foundation is accepting applications for its core programs in Behavioral Economics, Decision Making & Human Behavior in Context, Future of Work, and Social, Political and Economic Inequality. RSF is also interested in research on the Social, Political, Economic, and Psychological Consequences of the COVID-19 Pandemic as well as research focused on systemic racial inequality and/or the recent mass protests. LOIs are due Mar. 17.

News

Princeton University Awarded $385K to Study Muslim Communities in India

The Henry Luce Foundation awarded Princeton University, Sciences Po, and Columbia University $385,000 to begin a three-year-long study to gather data about the social, economic, and political conditions that affect the Muslim communities throughout India. Bernard Haykel, director of the Institute of Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia at Princeton, and over 30 scholars and researchers will examine how these factors impact Indian Muslim communities, which will shape their future generations and offer new scholastic insights.

Mellon Foundation Awards Over $72 Million to Promote "Just Futures"

Over the next three years, 16 projects will receive grants of up to $5 million to support public humanities initiatives that will advance public understanding of the nation’s racist past and lead to the creation of socially just futures. The Mellon Foundation invited 38 universities to participate in Just Futures and received 165 proposals. Among much else, funded projects will investigate patterns of racial exclusion in science and medicine (University of Wisconsin-Madison), develop community-specific plans for reparations to Native Americans and African-Americans (University of Michigan), study the impact of the criminal justice system on racial division (Columbia University), and create multimedia responses to dispossession and forced migration (Cornell, building on its Migrations Initiative).

Mark Foundation for Cancer Research's Inaugural Endeavor Awards

The Mark Foundation has committed $8 million to the first round of three Endeavor Awards, which support interdisciplinary teams to address the urgent, complex questions of cancer research. This year’s recipients will attempt to understand tumor plasticity and progression and the body’s response to growth. Next LOI deadline is March 1. 

data.org Selects Finalists for Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge

In partnership with Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and The Rockefeller Foundation, data.org announced eight awardees for the $10 million Inclusive Growth and Recovery Challenge, a global challenge to leverage the power of data science to help people thrive. Winning projects from around the world include demonstrating a new model for rapid assistance where machine learning-based targeting will guide the delivery of digital cash transfers (UC Berkeley) and developing data models to track how internet connectivity disproportionately impacts low-income communities (University of Chicago).

John Templeton Foundation Approves $49M for New Grants

The funded projects range in topic from "forgiveness" to "the origins of life." Notable projects include exploring a new dark matter theory (UC Riverside), understanding the relationship between motivated reasoning and personality traits (University of Michigan), analyzing the response to people who demonstrate religious curiosity (Columbia University), and publishing a field guide to identify the most pressing gaps and obstacles of enterprise-based solutions (Duke University). Templeton recently funded Brandeis Muslim chaplain Aaron Spevack to build fellowship and collaboration among Islamic philosophers and theologians fellowship in North America, through conferences, working groups, and publications.

The next deadline for an online funding inquiry is August 20, 2021.

Sabbatical Funding Opportunities

Brandeis CFR recently added a list of sabbatical funding resources to our website, addressing all disciplines and including both foreign and domestic funders. It can be located on the “For Faculty and Staff” or “Grant Opportunity Databases” pages. Please contact CFR before soliciting any corporation or foundation for fundraising purpose. The University has active relationships with many of these entities that must be coordinated carefully.

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Art History

The Samuel Kress Foundation devotes its resources to advancing the history, conservation and enjoyment of the vast heritage of European art, architecture and archaeology from antiquity to the early 19th century. There are two grants with deadlines of Mar. 1.

• The Digital Resources Grants program supports efforts to integrate new technologies into the practice of art history and the creation of important online resources in art history, including both textual and visual resources. The awards range from $25,000-$100,000.

• The History of Art Grants program supports scholarly projects that will enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. The awards range from $6,000-$50,000. 

Astrophysics

Biomedical Sciences

The Charles A. King Trust Postdoctoral Research Fellowship Programs for Basic Science and Clinical/Health Services supports postdoctoral fellows and physician-scientists. Two-year grants range from $104,008 to $117,760, inclusive of a $2,000 expense allowance. Proposals focused on cancer, blindness (not visual impairment) or child health are highly encouraged. The deadline for applications is Mar. 4.

The Deborah Munroe Noonan Memorial Research Fund awards one-year grants of up to $80,000 to support innovative clinical and health and social service system research and demonstration projects in the greater Boston area, designed to improve the quality of life for children and adolescents with disabilities. The deadline for applications is Mar. 13.
 
The Eppley Foundation for Research grants fund advanced, novel research in biological and physical sciences. Particular areas of interest include innovative medical investigations, endangered species and ecosystems in the U.S. and abroad, and climate change. Past grants have been between $10,000 and $35,000. The Foundation will fund a specific investigation in its entirety or a specified portion of a larger project. The deadline for LOIs is Mar. 15.

The Human Frontier Science Program is awarding three-year grants of up to $450,000 per year for teams of scientists from different countries who wish to combine their expertise in innovative approaches to questions that could not be answered by individual laboratories. Emphasis is placed on novel collaborations that bring together scientists preferably from different disciplines (e.g. from chemistry, physics, computer science, engineering) to focus on problems in the life sciences. Young Investigators' Grants are awarded to teams of researchers, all of whom are within the first five years after obtaining an independent laboratory (e.g. assistant professor, lecturer or equivalent), while Program Grants are awarded to teams of independent researchers at any stage of their careers. The deadline for LOIs is Mar. 30.

Child Health

The Charles H. Hood Foundation Child Health Research Awards Program awards two-year grants of $150,000 to early-career faculty. Grants support hypothesis-driven clinical, basic science, public health, health services research and epidemiology projects focused on child health. The deadline for applications is Sep. 15.

Neuroscience

The Whitehall Foundation, through its programs of research grants and grants-in-aid, assists scholarly research in neuroscience. Research grants offer between $90,000 and $225,000 for up to three years, and grants-in-aid offer $30,000 over a one-year period. The foundation emphasizes the support of young scientists at the beginning of their careers and productive senior scientists who wish to move into new fields of interest. The deadline for LOIs for both grants is Oct. 1.

Neuroscience

The McKnight Foundation Memory and Cognitive Disorders Awards provide $100,000 per year for three years to support innovative efforts to solve the problems of neurological and psychiatric diseases, especially those related to memory and cognition. Collaborative projects between basic and clinical neuroscientists are welcomed, as are proposals that help link basic with clinical neuroscience. The deadline for LOIs is Mar. 15.
 
The Whitehall Foundation funds research in neuroscience. Research grants offer between $90,000 and $225,000 for up to three years, and grants-in-aid offer $30,000 over one year. The foundation emphasizes the support of young scientists at the beginning of their careers and productive senior scientists who wish to move into new fields of interest. The deadline for LOIs for both grants is Apr. 15.

Social Sciences

The Russell Sage Foundation is now accepting applications for its small grants competition in Computational Social Science. This initiative supports innovative research that utilizes new data and methods to advance our understanding of social, psychological, political, and economic outcomes. The deadline for applications is Mar. 17.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

Lever for Change Announces Five Finalists for Impact Award

Finalists for the Larsen Lam ICONIQ Impact Award, a $12 million grant to help organizations scale up operations that will allow a brighter future for refugees, include Southern New Hampshire University. SNHU’s Global Education Movement will help refugees earn an accredited bachelor's degree and help connect graduates to meaningful careers in their own communities.

Hewlett Foundation Announces $50 Million Economy and Society Initiative

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s new, five-year commitment will support the development of intellectual and policy alternatives to the free-market absolutism of contemporary neoliberalism. Initial grants include $1.5 million to Yale University to promote the study of “American Political Economy” within political science and $2 million to support the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.

Henry Luce Foundation Awards $1 Million to Princeton's Center of the Study of Religion

The four-year grant from the foundation’s Theology Program will support a multi-institutional project (including faculty and students at Penn and Washington University St. Louis) examining the role of Black religions in American culture, highlight the diversity of Black religious life, and enhance public understanding of Black religious histories, cultures, and communities. The project will support work by scholars, teachers, religious and civic leaders, community organizations, and artists and will develop a digital platform to make their work available to interested publics.
 
Luce’s Theology Program is currently inviting institutions to submit preliminary letters of inquiry for projects to advance and transform public understanding of the relationships between race, justice, and religion in America. To be considered, interested Brandeis PI's should send ASAP a two-page project summary addressing program objectives, key personnel, and partnering units and organizations, and a one-page summary budget to limited-submissions@brandeis.edu. 

Lilly Endowment Awards $43 Million to Strengthen Understanding of Religion

The 18 grants will help museums and other cultural institutions to develop exhibitions and educational programs that fairly and accurately portray the role of religion in the U.S and around the world. The Boston Children’s Museum and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts will use their grants to hire new staff members to integrate religion into the museums’ exhibitions, programs, publications, and staff culture.

McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience Awards 2021 Neurobiology of Brain Disorder Awards

The three-year, $300,000 awards support innovative research by scientists studying the biology behind neurological and psychiatric diseases and seeking to translate laboratory discoveries about the brain and nervous system into diagnoses and therapies to improve human health.  This year's recipients will look at Parkinson’s Disease relationship with the gut, migrate mapping for network-based therapies, and relieving chronic pain without painkillers. Letters of intent for the 2022 awards are due by March 15, 2021.

Upcoming RFPs

Art History

The Samuel Kress Foundation devotes its resources to advancing the history, conservation and enjoyment of the vast heritage of European art, architecture and archaeology from antiquity to the early 19th century. There are two grants with LOI deadlines of Mar. 1.

• The Digital Resources Grants program supports efforts to integrate new technologies into the practice of art history and the creation of important online resources in art history, including both textual and visual resources. The awards range from $25,000-$100,000.
• The History of Art Grants program supports scholarly projects that will enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. The awards range from $6,000-$50,000.

Astrophysics

In partnership with The Gruber Foundation (TGF), the International Astronomical Union has created the TGF Fellowship to promote the science of cosmology and other branches of astronomy. The Fellowship will award $50,000 to an early-career astrophysicist, working in any field. Researchers in the last months of their PhD, having already received contract for post-doctoral position, or post-docs in their first year of appointment are encouraged to apply. The deadline for applications is Mar. 31.

Biomedical Sciences

The Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship supports postdoctoral fellows pursuing research into the causes and treatment of cancer, taking a broad approach to the study of the basic biology and chemistry for the underlying process. This three-year fellowship provides $162,000, with an additional $1,800 for travel. The deadline for applications is Feb. 12.

The Human Frontier Science Program is awarding three-year grants of up to $450,000 per year for teams of scientists from different countries who wish to combine their expertise in innovative approaches to questions that could not be answered by individual laboratories. Emphasis is placed on novel collaborations that bring together scientists preferably from different disciplines (e.g. from chemistry, physics, computer science, engineering) to focus on problems in the life sciences. Young Investigators' Grants are awarded to teams of researchers, all of whom are within the first five years after obtaining an independent laboratory (e.g. assistant professor, lecturer or equivalent), while Program Grants are awarded to teams of independent researchers at any stage of their careers. The deadline for LOIs is Mar. 30.

Life Sciences

The Eppley Foundation for Research grants fund advanced, novel research in biological and physical sciences. Particular areas of interest include innovative medical investigations, endangered species and ecosystems in the U.S. and abroad, and climate change. Past grants have been between $10,000 and $35,000. The Foundation will fund a specific investigation in its entirety or a specified portion of a larger project. The deadline for LOIs is Mar. 15.

Neuroscience

The Klingenstein-Simon Fellowship Awards, sponsored by the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund and the Simons Foundation, support, in the early stages of their careers, young investigators engaged in basic or clinical research that may lead to a better understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The awards provide $225,000 over three years. The deadline for applications is Feb. 15.

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

Mellon Foundation to Spend $250 Million to Reimagine Monuments

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a five-year, $250 million grantmaking effort to transform the way our country’s histories are told in commemorative spaces-- not only memorials, historical markers, and public statuary, but also storytelling spaces such as museums and art installations. Grants will focus on three areas: funding new monuments and storytelling spaces; contextualizing existing monuments through installations, research, and education; and relocating existing monuments.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Funds Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) grants

CZI recently announced its third round of EOSS awards totaling $4.7m this round --  $3 million in support of seventeen biomedical open source software projects and $1.7 million to three organizations working to advance reproducibility practices and open research infrastructure. The EOSS program supports the maintenance, growth, development, and promotion of important software tools used in imaging, single-cell biology, genomics, and data management. Of the 17 new awardees, five were higher education institutions.

The Gates Foundation's Upcoming Grand Challenge Deadlines

The Gates Foundation has upcoming deadlines for two new Grand Challenges in global health and development: developing fermented food for maternal nutrition (Jan 6) and developing and scaling new digital technologies to support small-scale farming (Feb 25). Brandeis received its first Grand Challenge grant in June in support of Karen Hansen's project, Cascading Lives: Stories of Loss, Resilience, and Resistance.

Intersession Training Opportunity on Funding Databases

The Brandeis Library has posted a new intersession training opportunity for faculty, students, and staff to learn how to navigate and use the university’s grant opportunity databases.
Grant Opportunities Database Workshop on Friday, January 15^th at 11 am with Maric Kramer, Social Sciences Librarian, and Lisa Zeidenberg, Creative Arts Librarian.

Other Upcoming Deadlines

Art History

The Kress Foundation History of Art Grants Program provides $6,000-$50,000 to support scholarly projects that will enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies. The deadline for applications is Jan. 15

Biology of Aging

The Glenn Foundation for Medical Research and AFAR Grants for Junior Faculty (formerly called the AFAR Research Grants for Junior Faculty) provides up to $100,000 for a one- to two-year award to junior faculty to conduct research in understanding the basic mechanisms of aging (rather than disease-specific research). The deadline for application is Dec. 15.

Biomedical Science

The Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship supports postdoctoral fellows pursuing research into the causes and treatment of cancer, taking a broad approach to the study of the basic biology and chemistry for the underlying process. This three-year fellowship provides $162,000, with an additional $1,800 for travel. The deadline for applications is Feb. 12.

Neuroscience

The McKnight Foundation supports innovative research in neuroscience through three competitive annual awards that seek out investigators whose research shows promise in bringing society closer to prevention, treatments, and cures for many devastating diseases. The Scholar Awards provide $225,000 over three years to encourage emerging neuroscientists to focus on disorders of learning and memory. The deadline for applications is Jan. 4.
 
The Whitehall Foundation, through its programs of research grants and grants-in-aid, assists scholarly research in neuroscience. Research grants offer between $90,000-$225,000 for up to three years, and grants-in-aid offer $30,000 over a one-year period. The foundation emphasizes the support of young scientists at the beginning of their careers and productive senior scientists who wish to move into new fields of interest. The deadline for LOIs for both grants is Jan. 15.

The Klingenstein-Simon Fellowship Awards, sponsored by the Esther A. & Joseph Klingenstein Fund and the Simons Foundation, support, in the early stages of their careers, young investigators engaged in basic or clinical research that may lead to a better understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The awards provide $225,000 over three years. The deadline for applications is Feb. 15.

Social Sciences

The William T. Grant Foundation Research Grants program supports theory-building and empirical research projects on reducing inequality or improving the use of research evidence. Research grants on reducing inequality typically range from $100,000 to $600,000 and cover two to three years of support. Improving the use of research evidence grants will range from $100,000 to $1 million and cover two to four years of support. The deadline for LOIs is Jan. 13.

Teaching

The Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation awards fellowships to present and prospective teachers, with an emphasis on teachers currently working at the college or university level, to enable them to study abroad or at some location or locations other than that with which they are most closely associated. The aim is to stimulate and broaden the minds of teachers so as to improve and enhance the quality of their instruction. Grants of $5,000 are primarily for travel and related expenses and not as salary substitutes, scholarships or grants in aid. The deadline for LOI submissions is Jan. 8. 

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

Kellogg Foundation Launches Racial Equity 2030

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, in partnership with the MacArthur Foundation’s Lever for Change program, recently announced the launch of Racial Equity 2030, a $90m global challenge to build and scale actionable ideas for transformative change in the systems and institutions that perpetuate racial inequities. Early-stage ideas are welcome: in addition to $15-20m scaling grants, the program will award up to 10 one-year $1m planning grants, which includes nine months of capacity-building support to further develop their project and strengthen their application. The registration deadline is January 28.

Rose Art Museum Receives COVID Relief Grant from Frankenthaler Foundation

The Helen Frankenthaler Foundation recently awarded a grant to Brandeis' Rose Art Museum, part of a $5m Covid-19 relief effort announced last spring, designed to aid small art museums and provide direct support to artists. The remainder of the latest $1.5m round of funding involves new two-year grants that promote equity in and access to the arts, including digital initiatives and professional opportunities for college students and recent graduates.

Other Upcoming Deadlines

Art History

The Kress Foundation History of Art Grants Program provides $6,000-$50,000 to support scholarly projects that will enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies. The deadline for applications is Jan. 15.

Neuroscience

The McKnight Foundation supports innovative research in neuroscience through three competitive annual awards that seek out investigators whose research shows promise in bringing society closer to prevention, treatments and cures for many devastating diseases. There are two awards with upcoming LOIs:
     - The Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Awards provide $200,000 over two years to encourage and support scientists working on the development of novel and creative approaches to understanding brain function. The deadline for LOIs is Dec. 7.
     - The Scholar Awards provide $225,000 over three years to encourage emerging neuroscientists to focus on disorders of learning and memory. The deadline for applications is Jan. 4.
 
The Whitehall Foundation, through its programs of research grants and grants-in-aid, assists scholarly research in neuroscience. Research grants offer between $90,000-$225,000 for up to three years, and grants-in-aid offer $30,000 over a one-year period. The foundation emphasizes the support of young scientists at the beginning of their careers and productive senior scientists who wish to move into new fields of interest. The deadline for LOIs for both grants is Jan. 15.

Teaching

The Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation awards fellowships to present and prospective teachers, with an emphasis on teachers currently working at the college or university level, to enable them to study abroad or at some location or locations other than that with which they are most closely associated. The aim is to stimulate and broaden the minds of teachers so as to improve and enhance the quality of their instruction. Grants of $5,000 are primarily for travel and related expenses and not as salary substitutes, scholarships or grants in aid. The deadline for LOI submissions is Jan. 8. 

View more upcoming RFPs on our RFP calendar.

News

ASAP Announces First Round Grantees of Collaborative Research Network

Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) has announced its first round grantees of the ASAP Collaborative Research Network (CRN) to bring together investigators across disciplines, institutions, career stages, and geographies seeking to tackle key knowledge gaps in Parkinson’s development and progression. $161 million will be distributed over three years to 21 projects focusing on two areas: the biology of associate genes and neuro-immune interactions. 13 projects include researchers from higher education institutions, and their projects will attempt to unravel the biology of LRRK2 (the most common mutated gene in inherited Parkinson’s disease) and uncover the molecular mechanisms in the neuro-immune system. 

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announced its newest cohort of five Moore Inventor Fellows, early-career investigators (10 years or less past terminal degree) pursuing inventions at an early stage that could lead to proof-of-concept work or advance an existing prototype of technology that tackles an important problem in scientific research, environmental conservation, or patient care. Each Fellow receives $675,000 over three years. An internal deadline for institutional nomination for the 2021 Moore Inventor Fellows competition is October 9 to limited-submissions@brandeis.edu.

Teagle Foundation Partners with NEH to Promote Humanities in Gen Ed

The Teagle Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities have jointly pledged $7 million to fund Cornerstone: Learning for Living Cornerstone: Learning for Living, a grant program to revitalize the role of humanities in general education. The initiative is dedicated to the proposition that reading transformative texts—regardless of authorship, geography, or the era that produced them—in community and under the guidance of an excellent humanities teacher, gives students the tools to interrogate themselves and their cultures and connect with the world democratically. The program offers planning grants up to $25,000 and implementation grants up to $350,000. 3-5 page concept papers are due December 1.

In 2019, the Teagle Foundation awarded Brandeis a three-year grant to support the Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation (ENACT), now a nationwide model of undergraduate civic engagement. 

Gates Foundation Awards $4.5 Million Grant for Evaluation of Family Planning in Africa

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a three-year, $4.5 million grant to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The maternal and child health researchers will conduct process evaluation research for the foundation’s family planning portfolios in Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The Gates Foundation emphasizes family planning as a key part of the broader commitment to empowering and improving family health. 

Hewlett Foundation Supports AidData with $1 Million

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation announced a $1 million grant to The College of William and Mary’s AidData, a search engine to improve how sustainable foreign aid is monitored and evaluated across sectors and disciplines. This grant will fund the second phase of AidData, to expand the database’s content to include project documents and donors. AidData is part of the William & Mary’s Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations. 

Mellon Foundation Awards $15 Million for the Institute for the Study for Global Racial Justice

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation announced a five-year, $15 million grant to establish the Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University. This institute will use humanistic theories and approaches to study global issues of race and social justice, which could impact K-12 education and criminal justice reform. 

Upcoming RFP Deadlines

Art History

The Kress Foundation History of Art Grants Program provides $6,000-$50,000 to support scholarly projects that will enhance the understanding and appreciation of European art and architecture. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogs and publications, and technical and scientific studies. The deadline for applications is Jan. 15.

Biomedical Science

The CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program provides funding and support to help scholars build their network and develop essential skills to become the next generation of research leaders. Researchers within the first five years of their first academic appointment from anywhere in the world are eligible to apply. The two-year award provides $100,000 in research support. The deadline for applications is Oct. 30.

Neuroscience

The McKnight Foundation supports innovative research in neuroscience through three competitive annual awards that seek out investigators whose research shows promise in bringing society closer to prevention, treatments and cures for many devastating diseases. There are two awards with upcoming LOIs:

1. The Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Awards provide $200,000 over two years to encourage and support scientists working on the development of novel and creative approaches to understanding brain function. The deadline for LOIs is Dec. 7.
2. The Scholar Awards provide $225,000 over three years to encourage emerging neuroscientists to focus on disorders of learning and memory. The deadline for applications is Jan. 4.

Social Sciences

The Russell Sage Foundation's Special Initiatives grants provide up to $175,000 over two years, primarily for graduate assistants and research costs. Principal Investigators can get a 1-month summer salary or, for non-faculty researchers, up to $20,000/yr for salary support. The deadline for LOI submissions is Nov. 11.