Non-Federal Sponsors
Modernizing Academic Appointment & Advancement
Sponsor: Open Research Community Accelerator (ORCA)
Description: The MA3 Challenge invites proposals from U.S.-based accredited, tax-exempt colleges and universities—including their departments, centers, and institutes—to reimagine their academic hiring, review, promotion, and tenure (RPT) processes. This initiative seeks bold, creative strategies to develop academic reward systems that foster a collaborative, responsive, and transparent research environment.
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Workplace Innovation Now (WIN) Challenge
Sponsor: Aspen Institute
Description: The Workplace Innovation Now (WIN) Challenge will award $60M to transformative solutions that help women thrive and build a better workplace for all. Each of the following WIN Challenge pillars has $20 million to award up to eight awardees who will receive either $2.5 million or $5 million each.
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Cornerstone: Learning for Living Initiative
Sponsor: Teagle Foundation
Description: This initiative aims to reinvigorate the role of the humanities in general education, and in doing so, expose a broad array of students to the power of the humanities; help students of all backgrounds build a sense of belonging and community; strengthen the coherence and cohesiveness of general education; and increase teaching opportunities for humanities faculty.
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AI for Economic Opportunity
Sponsor: GitLab Foundation
Description: Advancing AI-driven approaches to enhance economic mobility by unlocking impactful data, reducing service costs, and guiding education and career pathways. Focus on supporting low-income, low-education, and low-wage populations through innovations in data science, economics, sociology, and futures studies.
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NASA
Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Bridge Program
Description: The program’s primary goal is to develop sustainable partnerships among institutions historically under-resourced by NASA. These partnerships are expected to focus on paid research and engineering student positions with the goal of transitioning undergraduate students to graduate schools and/or employment by NASA or related institutions. Faculty involvement is encouraged but not required in Bridge proposals.
Timeline: Deadline TBD, proposals can request up to 5 yrs of funding.
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Support for Research Excellence (SuRE) Program (R16)
Description: This program supports investigator-initiated research that falls in the NIH mission areas. Institutions must award undergraduate or graduate degrees in biomedical sciences, have received $6M or less per year total costs from Research Project Grants in the previous two fiscal years before application and have either at least 25% of undergraduate students receiving Pell Grants, or be recognized as a HBCU or TCU.
Timeline: Applications accepted annually in late May and late September
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Engineering Research Initiation
Description: The NSF Directorate for Engineering (ENG) seeks to build research capacity by investing in researchers who have not received research federal agency funding (some exceptions apply) and broaden the base of investigators to include those unaffiliated with R1 institutions. Funds may be used for research expenses, trainee support, PI salary and may include necessary equipment for research.
Timeline: TBD
LEAPS-MPS
Description: LEAPS-MPS supports the research of pre-tenure faculty in math and physics, with an emphasis on non-traditional recipients of NSF funding, such as minority-serving, predominantly undergraduate or R2 institutions. These grants are intended to support MPS principal investigators for whom LEAPS funding would enable the PI to submit a subsequent successful proposal to a traditional, already-existing NSF funding opportunity.
Timeline: Next Application deadline is January 25, 2025
ExpandAI
Description: ExpandAI supports capacity-development projects within the National AI Research Institutes ecosystem that help broaden participation in AI research, education and workforce development. PI must be from a MSI as defined in the program solicitation, which is different from the DoE definition. As such, ERIs not considered MSIs may be eligible.
Timeline: There are several submission windows for proposals: March 12 - June 24, 2024; June 25 - October 18, 2024; January 6 - March 10, 2025
ExpandQISE
Description: This program is designed to help build capacity across eligible U.S. Institutions who want to engage significantly, increase competitiveness of the institution in future funding calls and leverage the readiness of local research and communities. Non-R1 institutions are eligible to apply, and institutions from EPSCoR jurisdictions, and institutions with more than 50% enrollment from currently under-represented groups in the sciences. MSIs are encouraged to apply.
Timeline: TBD