K-State partners with Atom Grants to power faculty funding discovery

Kansas State University has established an institutional membership with Atom Grants, providing faculty, staff and graduate students access to an AI-powered platform that makes finding and securing external funding faster and less burdensome.

The new partnership directly supports one of the central commitments of the Next-Gen K-State Strategic Plan: growing K-State's annual research expenditures to $350 million and faculty-initiated competitive awards to $300 million by 2030, while driving transformational discovery, innovation and scholarship across every college and campus. Reaching that goal means giving researchers better tools so they can spend less time hunting for opportunities and more time doing the work that defines K-State's land-grant mission of teaching, research and engagement.

"As a next-generation land-grant university, we want to empower our faculty to devote their time and energy to discovery — not to searching for their next funding opportunity," said Hans Coetzee, vice president for research. "Atom Grants provides a curated platform that serves scholars across every academic field, from STEM and the social sciences to the arts and humanities, by recommending funding opportunities that closely align with their work. By making the path from opportunity to proposal faster and more precise, Atom Grants helps every scholar focus on what matters most: advancing knowledge, creativity and impact."

Getting started

Starting today, Monday, Aug. 24, a personalized Atom Grants email will be delivered to the inboxes of all K-State faculty, staff and graduate students. Emails will come from K-State Office of Research, ovpr@send.research.ksu.edu. Access is also available now to anyone with a K-State email account. To sign in:

1. Visit https://atomgrants.com/signin
2. Enter your K-State email address, using eid@ksu.edu (not k-state.edu)
3. After being redirected to Single Sign-On, log in with your K-State eID credentials

There is no additional cost for individual researchers — the institutional membership covers the entire K-State community as part of the university's ongoing investment in growing its research enterprise.

Training opportunities

Faculty, staff and graduate students who want a guided introduction to the platform are welcome to join one of the following live training sessions:

• Wednesday, Sept. 2 from 9:30-10:15 a.m.
• Thursday, Sept. 10 from 2:15-3 p.m.
• Wednesday, Sept. 23 from noon-12:45 p.m.

A smarter way to search

Atom Grants replaces the traditional keyword-based grant search with an AI-driven approach built around natural language. Instead of guessing which combination of terms might surface a relevant program, researchers can describe their work in plain language — or paste in the abstract from an existing proposal or publication — and let the platform surface funding opportunities that match the substance of their research.

The system goes a step further by automatically building a researcher profile from each user's existing public scholarly output, then using that profile to deliver personalized weekly email alerts as new, well-matched opportunities become available. For faculty juggling teaching, mentoring and lab management alongside the search for funding, that means fewer manual searches and a steady, curated pipeline of relevant leads landing directly in their inbox.

"The Atom Grants Pilot Program is a valuable platform," said Lihua Wang, a researcher in the Atom Grants pilot group. "I receive a weekly email highlighting funding opportunities that match my research profile. The platform provides personalized grant recommendations based on my research interests and expertise, notifies me of new funding opportunities and has an easy-to-use interface. I also appreciate the ability to save and track grant opportunities that interest me."

AI support through the application process

Atom Grants' assistance doesn't end once an opportunity is identified. Its AI tools also help researchers navigate the application process, such as:

• Extracting key requirements directly from funding announcements.
• Generate submission checklists so nothing gets missed.
• Automatically assessing eligibility criteria before significant time is invested.

By automating these administrative steps, the platform is designed to enable faculty to spend more time refining their research ideas and less time parsing dense solicitation language — a shift that closely aligns with embedding operational excellence in the research enterprise.