External Funding Opportunities & GrantForward
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Current NSF Opportunities:
Grant Submission Due: November 14, 2025 (Track 2 only)
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has released the Geosciences Open Science Ecosystem (GEO OSE) Program with a deadline of November 14, 2025 (Track 2) (link). The Geosciences Open Science Ecosystem (GEO OSE) program seeks to realize the benefits of open science practices toward advancing research and education in the geosciences. To achieve this vision, the GEO OSE program encourages efforts to foster adoption of open, inclusive, and equitable scientific practices across geoscience domains. The program supports development of innovative open science approaches that advance geosciences research and education through leveraging expanding information resources and computing capabilities. The program also supports initiatives to strengthen the capacity of current and future geoscientists to access, utilize, and collaborate within the growing ecosystem of open science resources.
Program Tracks
Track 2 only: These awards target larger-scale activities aimed at fostering transformation of geoscience research communities toward open science practices. Projects should be designed to grow user/developer communities within the existing ecosystem of capabilities (e.g., data repositories, software packages, computational resources) toward broad and sustained efforts to embed open science practices in the day-to-day research/education workflows of geoscientists.
Anticipated Award Amount
Track 2: Up to $1M over 3 years
Grant Submission Due: January 22, 2026
Description: The Launching of Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) supports the launch of the careers of pre-tenure faculty whose research is in Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) fields at institutions that do not traditionally receive significant amounts of MPS funding, such as Carnegie Research 2 (R2) universities, minority-serving institutions (MSIs), predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs). The LEAPS awards enable PIs from these institutions to initiate productive research programs and generate results useful for preparing subsequent competitive proposals to "traditional" NSF funding opportunities, such as a core program or a CAREER solicitation. A critical goal of the LEAPS-MPS Program is to develop the 21st-century STEM workforce representative of society's full spectrum of talent by increasing the participation in STEM research of members of communities underrepresented and/or underserved in STEM and the number of members of these communities who can serve as role models.
Funding Opportunity Number: NSF 25-535
Award Amount: $250,000 total costs over 2 years
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Current NIH Opportunities:
Grant Submission Due: October 16, 2025
This Trailblazer Award is an opportunity for NIH-defined New and Early Stage Investigators (https://grants.nih.gov/policy/early-investigators/index.htm) to pursue research programs that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and/or biomedical sciences. A Trailblazer project may be exploratory, developmental, proof of concept, or high risk-high impact, and may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven. Importantly, applicants must propose research approaches for which there are minimal or no preliminary data. A distinct feature is that no preliminary data are required, expected, or encouraged. However, if available, minimal preliminary data are allowed.
Grant Submission Due: October 25, 2025
The purpose of this Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) for Undergraduate-Focused Institutions is to support small scale research grants at institutions that do not receive substantial funding from the NIH, with an emphasis on providing biomedical research experiences primarily for undergraduate students, and enhancing the research environment at applicant institutions.
- R16 SuRE and SuRE-First
Grant Submission Due: September 29, 2025
There is a pressing need to enhance biomedical research capacity and opportunities for research at resource-limited institutions, many of which disproportionately serve regions of the U.S. that have not historically participated in substantial NIH research, including rural areas. Support for these institutions will allow different research questions and ideas to be studied and ensure that students from all communities and regions of the country have the opportunity to participate in high quality scientific inquiries and explore careers in biomedical research. The Support for Research Excellence (SuRE) program aims to develop and sustain research excellence at such institutions by supporting investigator-initiated research with strong student participation.
Grant Submission Due: October 25, 2025
Description: The purpose of the Research Enhancement Award Program (REAP) for Health Professional Schools and Graduate Schools is to support small scale research grants at institutions that do not receive substantial funding from the NIH, with an emphasis on providing biomedical research experiences primarily for health professional, undergraduate and graduate students and enhancing the research environment at applicant institutions.
Funding Opportunity Number: PAR-25-298
Award Amount: Up to $375,000 in direct costs, excluding consortium F&A, for the entire project period of up to 3 years.
Grant Submission Due: January 27, 2026
Description: The BRE-SPAD program is intended to support the development of biomedical research capacity. The biomedical research enterprise includes a range of research, including basic science, behavioral, social science, as well as translational and clinical research, and will be described hereafter as biomedical research. The BRE-SPAD program aims to support the needs of organizations that are in different stages of biomedical research capacity building. The BRE-SPAD program will support activities in the following areas (1-3). All applications should propose plans in at least two of the funding areas listed below:
- Sponsored Programs Administration Development: For activities to increase sponsored programs administration capabilities, including staff, resources, training, policy development and other activities related to grants, contracts, activities to increase organizational funds available for research, and technology transfer.
- Research Environment: For activities to cultivate growth in research and research education activities. Example activities include, but are not limited to, faculty grant writing training, student research training activities, course-based research development, research symposia, and research oversight policies and implementation.
- Pilot Research Project Program: For the development of a program to administer internal pilot research project funding to faculty conducting biomedical research with the goal of generating preliminary data to enhance the competitiveness of securing external research funding.
Funding Opportunity Number: PA-24-268
Award Amount: Application budgets for direct costs should not exceed $500,000/year over 5 years.
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Current NEH Opportunities:
Grant Submission Due: November 19, 2025 (anticipated)
Anticipated Award amount: Depending on funding category, up to $250,000, or up to $300,000 for collaborations that include a community college or certain minority-serving institutions.
Expected Output: Book; Conference; Digital Resource or Publication; Themed Issue of Peer-Reviewed Journal; Website
Period Start Date/Period of Performance: October 1, 2026 - September 1, 2027/Up to three years (Depending on funding category)
The Collaborative Research program aims to advance humanistic knowledge by supporting teams of scholars working on a joint endeavor leading to a manuscript for print publication or to a digital product. Teams may propose research in a single field of study or interdisciplinary work. NEH encourages projects that incorporate multiple points of view and pursue new avenues of inquiry.
Collaborators may come from one or more institutions. NEH encourages partnerships with researchers in the natural and social sciences, but projects must focus on humanistic content and employ humanistic methods. International collaboration is welcome, but scholars at U.S. institutions must contribute significantly to the project.
The program includes four project categories: Planning International Collaboration, Convening, Manuscript Preparation, and Scholarly Digital Projects. The categories support different project types or stages and have different performance periods and award ceilings. Applicants must specify only one project category for support.
Foundation Grant Opportunities:
Current Foundation Opportunities:
- Burroughs Wellcome Fund: Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grants
Grant Deadline Date: Proposals due by July 24, 2025
The Fund invites applications for its Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grants program, which aims to stimulate the growth of new connections between thinkers working in largely disconnected fields who could together change the course of climate change’s impact on human health. Small, early-stage grants of between $2,500 and $50,000 will be awarded through the program.
Grant Deadline Date: Proposals due by November 1, 2025
Grants of up to $25,000 will be awarded in support of individual research projects in anthropology or a closely related field. The program aims to support vibrant and significant work that furthers our understanding of what it means to be human, and there is no preference for any methodology, research location, topic, or subfield. The foundation particularly welcomes proposals that integrate two or more subfields and pioneer new approaches and ideas.
The William T. Grant Major Research Grants and Officers' Research Grants fund research studies that aim to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5-25 in the United States. We prioritize studies that aim to reduce inequalities that exist along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status, language minority status, or immigrant origins.
Major Research Grant: Deadline - due August 6, 2025. Projects involving secondary data analysis are typically at the lower end of the budget range, whereas projects involving new data collection and sample recruitment can be at the higher end. Proposals to launch experiments in which settings (e.g., classrooms, schools, youth programs) are randomly assigned to conditions sometimes have higher awards. $100,000 to $600,000 over 2-3 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
Officers' Research Grant: Deadlines - due August 6, 2025. Studies may be stand-alone projects or may build off larger projects. The budget should be appropriate for the activities proposed.$25,000 to $50,000 over 1-2 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
Grant Deadline Date: August 6, 2025
Research grants on improving the use of research evidence fund research studies on strategies focused on improving the use of research evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. We want to know what it takes to get research used by decision-makers and what happens when research is used. We welcome letters of inquiry for studies that pursue one of these broad aims.
Major Research Grant: Deadline - due August 6, 2025; $100,000 to $1,000,000 over 2-4 years, including up to 15% indirect costs. Studies involving secondary data analysis are at the lower end of the range (about $100,000-$300,000), whereas studies that involve new data collection can have larger budgets (typically $300,000-$600,000). Generally, only proposals to launch experiments in which settings (e.g., schools, child welfare agencies, justice settings) are randomly assigned to conditions are eligible for funding above $600,000.
Officers' Research Grant: Deadlines - due August 6, 2025. Studies may be stand-alone projects or may build off larger projects. The budget should be appropriate for the activities proposed. $25,000 to $50,000 over 1-2 years, including up to 15% indirect costs.
Grant Deadline Dates, annually: January 15 (LOI)/June 1 (Application), April 15 (LOI)/September 1 (Application), October 1 (LOI)/February 15 (Application)
This foundation's grant program assists scholarly research in the life sciences. The Foundation is currently interested in basic research in neurobiology, defined as follows: Invertebrate and vertebrate (excluding clinical) neurobiology, specifically investigations of neural mechanisms involved in sensory, motor, and other complex functions of the whole organism as these relate to behavior. The overall goal should be to better understand behavioral output or brain mechanisms of behavior. The Foundation does not support research focused primarily on disease(s) unless it will also provide insights into normal functioning.
Concept Papers Due: November 15, 2025, 4 pm EST
Full Proposal Deadline: February 15, 2026, 4 pm EST
Description: The Foundation is particularly interested in fresh approaches to solving common, everyday problems or emerging issues within our defined focus area. Projects should focus on issues faced by care providers that, when implemented, will improve the health, nutrition and/or developmental outcomes for infants and young children. The board is particularly looking for practical solutions that can be easily and rapidly implemented on a broad scale with a predictable time frame to clinical application.
Major Research Award Award Amount: $350,000
Eligibility: Experienced Principal Investigators
Novice Research Award Award Amount: $30,000
Eligibility: Physicians, PhD candidates, PharmD candidates, and other similar degree candidates.
- In a residency, postdoctoral, or fellowship training program or those who are no more than one year post training
- Have not received a K01 award from the National Institutes of Health
- Have an assigned mentor for the project and a current development plan
Intent to Apply Form Deadline: August 13, 2025
Full Proposal Deadline: September 17, 2025
Description: The Vision Grants program funds the collaborative planning of innovative, methodologically diverse, interdisciplinary research on education that contributes to transforming education systems for equity. Vision Grants are research planning grants to bring together a team, for 6 to 12 months, to collaboratively develop ambitious, large-scale research projects focused on transforming educational systems toward greater equity. This program takes as core that visionary, interdisciplinary, and collaborative research projects require time, space, and thoughtfulness to incubate and plan. Vision Grants are $75,000 total. Different from many of Spencer’s other programs, the proposal should not be a fully fleshed out research plan. Instead, this is an invitation to think forward about what research we need to transform education systems toward equity and then to envision how that systems-change will happen, utilizing research evidence. Teams are encouraged to reflect on the people who need to be involved from the beginning of the research design process, and how evidence from the eventual research study/studies could be used to actually transform systems. Vision Grant proposals should identify the system(s) targeted for transformation and the specific levers the team thinks need to be engaged in order to work toward systems transformation.
Proposals should also explicitly identify:
- 1) a research topic and initial thoughts about scope and methodological approach of the study,
- 2) the plan for impact, identifying the levers for systems change that will likely be engaged
- 3) the collaboration process, and
- 4) a team that will lead to a fully fleshed out research plan by the end of the grant period.
While the Vision Grant program stands on its own to spark research ideas and collaborations, being awarded a Vision Grant is also a prerequisite for applying to our Transformative Research Grant program (TRG, $3.5 million), which is designed for large-scale research projects that transform education systems for equity.
Award Amount: $75,000
ORSP is pleased to announce that faculty, staff, and students now have access to the GrantForward database. GrantForward is a search engine dedicated to helping institutions and individuals find grants to fund their research.
- GrantForward covers more than 20,000 sponsors worldwide to provide a comprehensive database of more than 83,000 funding opportunities linked with over 6,000 pre-solicitations and 2.1M funded awards that continues to grow with the most up-to-date information.
- GrantForward’s powerful search system helps to lessen the hassle of searching for grants with advanced search filters and specialized search features.
- GrantForward researcher profiles allow researchers to highlight their research achievements and interests to receive personalized grant recommendations that match their research needs.
GrantForward Training Resources
Access the Recording of the entire Webinar "Moving Your Next Project Forward with GrantForward" from Oct 25, 2024 here.
or access FAQ info in these additional resources:
- How do I find a grant? Video or PDF
- How do I receive grant recommendations? Video or PDF
- How do I learn strategic information using GratForward databases? Video or PDF
- Visit GrantForward YouTube Channel for other instruction videos.
- Visit the GrantForward Support page for the complete list of resources.
Create Your GrantForward Account and Researcher Profile
- Start moving your research forward by accessing this Single Sign-On URL https://www.grantforward.com/saml/kean and sign in using your institution account or
- Go to GrantForward.com, enter their institutional email address in the Log In (at the upper-right corner), then click outside of the Email Address input box to trigger the email recognition. When your email is detected, choose “Click here to use Single-Sign-On".
- If you would like to benefit from receiving grant recommendations, then you will also need to make sure to create your researcher profile (see this Tutorial demo)