Funding Spotlight
Please direct any questions about proposal submission for any of the awards listed below to Erin Cromack (617-496-5252, cromack@fas.harvard.edu) or Susan Gomes (617-496-9448, susan_gomes@harvard.edu)
Limited Competitions:
- Brain Research Foundation Scientific Innovations Award
- NSF Collections in Support of Biological Research
- W. T. Grant Scholars Program
- NSF Physics Frontiers Centers, NSF 13-559
- Keck Foundation – Medical Research Program and Science and Engineering Program
Internal Competitions:
External Competitions:
- Ellison Scholar Awards in Neuroscience – New and Senior Scholars
- NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program
–Limited Submission Funding Opportunities–
Brain Research Foundation Scientific Innovations Award
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 6, 2013 by 5pm
Award Amount: $150,000 direct costs over two years
Target Disciplines: Neuroscience
Eligible Faculty: Associate Professors and Professors
The Brain Research Foundation’s Scientific Innovations Award Program provides funding for innovative science in both basic and clinical neuroscience. This funding mechanism is designed to support creative, exploratory, cutting edge research in well-established research laboratories, under the direction of established investigators. The objective of the SIA is to support projects that may be too innovative and speculative for traditional funding sources but still have a high likelihood of producing important findings. It is expected that investigations supported by these grants will yield high impact findings and result in major grant applications and significant publications in high impact journals.
NSF Collections in Support of Biological Research
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 16, 2013 by 5pm
Award Amount: Up to $500,000 for up to three years
The Collections in Support of Biological Research (CSBR) Program provides funds for improvements to secure, improve, and organize collections that are significant to the NSF BIO-funded research community; to secure collections-related data for sustained, accurate, and efficient accessibility of the collection to the biological research community; and to transfer collection ownership responsibilities. The CSBR program provides for enhancements that secure and improve existing collections, result in accessible digitized specimen-related data, and develop better methods for specimen curation and collection management. Requests should demonstrate a clear and urgent need to secure the collection, and the proposed activities should address that need. Biological collections supported include established living stock/culture collections, vouchered non-living natural history collections, and jointly-curated ancillary collections such as preserved tissues and DNA libraries.
W. T. Grant Scholars Program
FAS Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 17, 2013 by 5pm
Award Amount: $350,000 over 5 years
Target Faculty: Early Career (no more than 7 years from terminal degree)
Target Disciplines: Education, Psychology, Public Policy, Sociology, or any discipline relating to settings of youth ages 8-25 in the United States
The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports early-career researchers in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. The goal of the program is to support the development of Scholars as they expand their skills and conduct high-quality research with mentoring from senior colleagues. This program currently supports research to understand and improve the everyday settings of youth ages 8 to 25 in the United States. Specifically, the foundation is interested in funding studies that enhance understanding of how youth settings work, how they affect youth development, and how they can be improved; and when, how, and under what conditions research evidence is used in policy and practice that affect youth, and how its use can be improved.
NSF Physics Frontiers Centers, NSF 13-559
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 28, 2013 by 5pm
Award Amount: $1-5 Million per year for five years
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. Activities supported through the program are in all sub-fields of physics within the purview of the Division of Physics: atomic, molecular, optical, plasma, elementary particle, nuclear, astro-, gravitational, and biological physics. Interdisciplinary projects at the interface between these physics areas and other disciplines and physics sub-fields are also included, although the bulk of the effort should fall within one of those areas within the purview of the Physics Division.
W.M. Keck Foundation
Medical Research Program and Science and Engineering Research Program
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: June 3, 2013 by 5pm
Award Amount: up to $1M
The Keck Foundation supports pioneering discoveries in science, engineering and medicine by funding high-risk, high-impact work of leading researchers. Funding is awarded for projects in biomedical research or science and engineering research that:
- Focus on important and emerging areas of research
- Have the potential to develop breakthrough technologies, instrumentation or methodologies
- Are innovative, distinctive and interdisciplinary
- Demonstrate a high level of risk due to unconventional approaches, or by challenging the prevailing paradigm
- Have the potential for transformative impact, such as the founding of a new field of research, the enabling of observations not previously possible, or the altered perception of a previously intractable problem
- Fall outside the mission of public funding agencies
- Demonstrate that private philanthropy generally, and the W. M. Keck Foundation in particular, is essential to the project’s success
–Internal Funding Opportunities–
Provost’s Fund for Interfaculty Collaboration
Deadline: May 17, 2013
Award Amount: up to $25,000
Eligible Disciplines: All
The Provost’s Fund for Interfaculty Collaboration supports a variety of cross-faculty collaborations, including but not limited to new interdisciplinary courses, working groups, small-scale conferences, and new research projects that have relevance to fostering interfaculty collaboration more broadly. Applicants must hold primary Harvard faculty appointments at the rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor and must be from at least two different Schools or two different divisions within FAS. Priority will be given to applicants who have not previously received funding from the grant and to proposals that illustrate the potential long-term impact of one-time seed funding, as well as to proposals that show the leveraging of other Harvard resources.
–External Funding Opportunities–
Ellison Scholar Awards in Neuroscience – New and Senior Scholars
Letter of Intent Deadline: June 21, 2013 by 11:59pm
New Scholar Award Amount: $100,000 per year, total costs, for four years
Senior Scholar Award Amount: $150,000 direct costs per year, plus full indirect costs at the institution’s NIH negotiated rate, for up to four years.
Eligible Disciplines: Neuroscience
The Neuroscience Scholars program is intended to provide researchers with the support and resources to develop innovative research programs aimed at gaining insight into the fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms that underlie normal biological function, and when dysfunctional, lead to illness. The foundation has chosen an initial focus for the Neuroscience Scholars program on the “Neuroscience of Aggressive Behavior”. The goal of this program is to stimulate and nurture innovative research that seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the neurobiological basis of aggression and related behaviors, and of the environmental and genetic factors that contribute to violence and anti-social disorders.
NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program
Deadline: July 22-24 (varies by directorate)
OSP Deadline: 5 business days before sponsor deadline
Award Amount: $400-500K minimum, includes indirect costs, five years
Eligible Disciplines: All disciplines supported by NSF
The NSF CAREER award program is the National Science Foundation’s most prestigious award in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Applicants must hold a doctoral degree in a field supported by NSF and be employed in a tenure-track (or tenure-track-equivalent) position as an assistant professor (or equivalent title) by October 1, 2013. To assist faculty in preparing their proposals, FAS Research Development has developed guidelines that include information about the application components, initial steps to take, and advice on drafting the education plan. Additionally, members of the Research Development team are available for individual meetings with faculty to discuss the development of applications.
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Past Funding Deadlines