Featured Opportunities

January 28, 2026

• The Department of Agriculture, NIFA’s Agriculture and Food Research Initiative - Education and Workforce Development (EWD) focuses on developing the next generation of research, education, and extension professionals in the food and agricultural sciences. The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) requests applications for the AFRI’s Education and Workforce Development program areas to support: professional development opportunities for K-14 educational professionals; non-formal education that cultivates food and agricultural interest in youth; workforce training at community, junior, and technical colleges; training of undergraduate students in research and extension; fellowships for predoctoral candidates; fellowships for postdoctoral scholars; and education and workforce development workshop grants.
• The United States Department of Agriculture, Animal Health Protection Inspection Service announces this funding opportunity to support the sweeping plan to combat New World Screwworm (NWS) as described in the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture’s August 15, 2025, press release, titled USDA Announces Sweeping Plans to Protect the United States from New World Screwworm. Through this Grand Challenge, APHIS is making up to $100,000,000 available to combat NWS and prevent its northward spread. APHIS is making rapid progress on the construction of additional sterile insect production facilities with full capacity of 300 million sterile flies per week expected to come online in March 2029. Through the Grand Challenge, APHIS hopes to identify both projects that will augment our rapid response to the growing threat of NWS to serve as an interim step while production increases, but also long-term investments that expand our ability to respond to the parasite now and into the future – technologies. APHIS will support projects that enhance sterile NWS fly production, develop novel NWS traps and lures, develop and increase understanding of NWS therapeutics/treatments in animals, or develop other tools to bolster preparedness or response to NWS.
• The Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Veterinary Medicine’s (CVM) NARMS Cooperative Agreement Program to Strengthen Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance in Retail Food Specimens builds upon the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) which was initiated in 1996 as one of the key activities in a national action plan to combat antibiotic resistance threats. The purpose of this FOA is to protect and promote public health by enhancing, strengthening, and sustaining antibiotic resistance surveillance in retail food specimens within the NARMS program. The NARMS cooperative agreement is intended to improve the detection of antibiotic resistance among bacteria in food commodities, as well as expand to new sites to expand the scope of sampling. Measurable outcomes of the program will be in alignment with the NARMS Objectives.
• The Kansas State University, Office of Research Development announces its DASH (Design, Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities) award opportunity for faculty researchers working in the fields of design, arts, social sciences, and humanities. This is an annual opportunity for one-time, one-year $10,000 awards to support research, scholarly work, or creative activities. Applications follow the same eligibility guidelines as and must include all items requested in the call for University Small Research Grants, but unlike that lowerfunded internal program, your DASH budget can include up to one summer month of faculty salary (if multiple faculty members are involved, the total salary request cannot exceed one summer month).
• The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Mid-Career Advancement (MCA) program offers an opportunity for scientists and engineers at the mid-career stage (see restrictions under Additional Eligibility Information) to substantively enhance and advance their research program and career trajectory. Mid-career scientists are at a critical career transition stage where they need to advance their research programs to ensure long-term productivity and creativity but are often constrained by service, teaching, or other activities that limit the amount of time devoted to research. The MCA program provides protected time, resources, and the means to gain new skills through synergistic and mutually beneficial partnerships, typically at an institution other than the candidate's home institution. Partners from outside the Principal Investigator's (PI) own subdiscipline or discipline are encouraged, but not required, to enhance interdisciplinary networking and convergence across science and engineering fields. Research projects that envision new insights on existing problems or identify new problems made accessible with cutting-edge methodology or expertise from other fields are encouraged.
• NSF’s Emerging Mathematics in Biology (eMB) program seeks to stimulate the development of innovative mathematical theories, techniques, and approaches to investigate challenging questions of great interest to biologists and public health policymakers. It supports truly integrative research projects in mathematical biology that address challenging and significant biological questions through novel applications of traditional, but nontrivial, mathematical tools and methods or the development of new mathematical theories particularly from foundational mathematics, including the mathematical foundation of Artificial Intelligence/Deep Learning/Machine Learning (AI/DL/ML) enabling explainable AI or mechanistic insight. The program emphasizes the uses of mathematical methodologies to advance our understanding of complex, dynamic, and heterogenous biological systems at all scales (molecular, cellular, organismal, population, ecosystems, evolutionary, etc.).
• Kansas State University’s Johnson Cancer Research Center will offer Seed Funding for research projects that aim to generate data for future grant proposals. All full faculty affiliated with the center are eligible to apply. Awards will be made on a competitive basis, with funding amounts capped at $25,000 per project due to budget limitations. Budgets that exceed this will not be reviewed. While larger funding requests may be considered, applicants seeking such support must consult with Dr. Ryan J. Rafferty prior to submission. Please note that proposals requesting sustained funding for full-time research assistants or postdoctoral fellows will not be considered. Additionally, funding cannot be used for major equipment purchases, faculty summer salaries, travel, or graduate student salaries. A progress report is required for award recipients to remain eligible for future funding opportunities. Funds must be spent within one year. Requests will be evaluated based on 1) Cancer relevance 2) Potential for future national funding (such as NIH, NSF or DOD), and 3) preference will be given to programs not currently enjoying extramural funding. The cancer relevance of the proposed research will be a high criterion of evaluation.
• New technology and the acquisition of necessary equipment can be crucial to modern research, yet funds for this purpose are often lacking. The Kansas State University Johnson Cancer Center, through its Core Facility Equipment Award, will fund equipment purchases for equipment and service cores that serve K-State and JCRC faculty members. Their intent is to help fund high-impact equipment that can be used by large numbers of JCRC faculty. This mechanism is only available to recognized core facilities at K-State and not open to individual labs even with the understanding that equipment will be shared.
• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health (NIH) seeks to advance its mission by maintaining strong, productive, and secure international research collaborations in support of the NIH mission. The NIH Collaborative International Research Project (PF5Parent Announcement) supports international research collaborations. This opportunity specifically implements an award structure of prime domestic awards with independent foreign awards that are linked to the prime. This structure provides NIH with oversight capacity for international collaborations, and allows NIH to track international funding, as identified in NOT-OD-25-104. This funding opportunity is specifically designed for NIH to support funded international collaborations between a domestic prime organization and foreign organizations. This NOFO should not be used for foreign consultants, purchasing unique equipment or supplies from foreign vendors, foreign collaborations that do not involve NIH funding, or any other foreign component that would not result in a foreign subaward. All collaborative international research project applications must include at least 1 international subproject. The proposed project must be related to the programmatic interests of one or more of the participating NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs) based on their scientific missions. The application will be evaluated as a whole, and the international subproject(s) will be evaluated on whether the project presents special opportunities for furthering research programs through the use of unusual talent, resources, populations, or environmental conditions in other countries that are not readily available in the United States or that augment existing United States resources, and whether the proposed project has specific relevance to the mission and objectives of the ICO and has the potential for significantly advancing the health sciences in the United States.
• While start-up funds may provide junior investigators support for personnel and the establishment of the main project of the laboratory, limited funds are available for cancer research supplies. The Kansas State University Johnson Cancer Research Expansion Award provides associate JCRC members only with up to $20,000 to expand their cancer research project. This award is aimed at increasing the number of active cancer projects at K-State and the likelihood of finding a cure for cancer. We expect to give 1-2 awards per year. If the project has progressed but not resulted in a cancer-related publication or grant application, a second-year award may be possible. Funds may not pay for personnel, major equipment or travel.