Featured Opportunities

March 11, 2026

• Doubled haploid (DH) technology is widely used in crop breeding to rapidly generate fully homozygous lines in a single generation, ensuring genetic uniformity and eliminating trait segregation across generations. It significantly accelerates the development of stable, high-performing varieties compared to conventional inbreeding approaches that require multiple generations. DH production generates a mixture of haploid (1N) plants and spontaneous doubled haploid (2N) plants. Unfortunately, 1N plants cannot be distinguished from 2N plants until they flower, leading to substantial resource investment in unproductive material. Currently, the most effective method for identifying ploidy during DH production is to sample leaves from individual plants and perform flow cytometry on isolated nuclei. While this technique is reliable and precise, it is both time-consuming and costly. BASF via Halo is looking for innovative approaches to develop a new methodology for ploidy detection that can reliably distinguish haploid from diploid tissues at the earliest possible developmental stage, ideally at the embryo stage, with the young plantlet stage also acceptable. Proposed approaches should prioritize high recall of doubled haploid (2N) plants, ensuring that fertile material is retained even if some haploid plants (false positives) are carried forward.
• The BARD Food Security Technology Accelerator is a joint initiative by the Israel-U.S. Binational Agriculture Research and Development Foundation (BARD) to support collaborative R&D projects between Israeli and American partners. The program aims to bridge research and industry, accelerate the path from discovery to application, and foster innovation in food security. It provides conditional grants of up to $1 million (for projects with a total budget of up to $1.6 million) over two years, fully funding academic partners and partially funding industry partners. The program supports projects at Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 3–6, focusing on significant technological innovation with high commercial and social impact. The grant covers R&D, dissemination, and commercialization activities, and is designed to share risk and reward between partners.
• The University of Minnesota Clarke Chambers Travel Fellowships support travel and related expenses for researchers using the Social Welfare History Archives (SWHA) and Kautz Family YMCA Archives (YMCA). The Clarke Chambers Travel Fellowships are awarded annually. Funds may be used for transportation, housing, meals, and scanning. Smaller awards to support scanning of orders for researchers who are unable to visit the archives may also be available on a case-by-case basis. Dissertation writers, early career scholars, and members of communities documented in the archives are especially encouraged to apply.
• The Florida International University, The Wolfsonian’s Creative Fellowships invite artists of all kinds—visual artists, designers, performers, writers, filmmakers, and musicians—to immerse themselves in the Wolfsonian collection and draw visual, conceptual, or storytelling inspiration from its wide range of historical materials. Grounded in the museum's exploration of modernity and visual culture from 1850 to 1950, the fellowship encourages creative research that connects historical ideas to contemporary practice. The fellowship is open to creatives with a demonstrated record of accomplishment working in visual, time-based, performative, or digital media. Applicants from a wide range of disciplines are encouraged to apply, particularly those interested in research-driven practice and interdisciplinary experimentation. For the 2026–27 cycle, they invite creatives engaging with digital media to explore how digital tools and platforms can activate the Wolfsonian collection and ideas for contemporary audiences. During a 2-week residency, fellows engage closely with staff, objects, and the resources of the Knight Labs to develop concepts for new work informed by their research. Proposals are encouraged for projects involving, but not limited to, animation, moving image, generative media, sound-based work, or other experimental formats. As part of the museum's broader commitment to supporting contemporary practice, The Wolfsonian may also commission a fellow to realize an original digital artwork inspired by their research.
• The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program (EGFP) provides an opportunity for applicants who received the distinction of GRFP Honorable Mention no more than three years before the proposal due date to be named NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellows and obtain financial support for their graduate education at an institution in an EPSCoR jurisdiction. EGFP aims to enhance the capacity and competitiveness of EPSCoR jurisdictions by providing funding to graduate degree-awarding institutions to support NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellows as they pursue graduate degrees in the disciplines specified by the NSF Directorates and Office that are participating in the EGFP funding program. Fellows may pursue degrees in field that differ from the field or sub-field of study that the GRFP Honorable Mention recipients previously listed in their GRFP application. EGFP awards will be made to institutions in EPSCoR jurisdictions. Awards will provide three years of stipend and associated cost-of-education allowance for each NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellow. This is a limited submission with notifications (working title, team list, short synopsis) due to the Office of Research Development by 5 pm March 25, 2020 via ordlimitedsubs@ksu.edu.
• The Department of Health and Human Services, NIH intends to issue a Notice of Funding Opportunity to allow applications for competitive revisions of ongoing grants to address specific public health crises that were unforeseen when the original application was submitted. Once this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is approved and issued, applications for Urgent Competitive Revisions will be routed directly to the NIH awarding component listed on the Notice of Award of the most recent parent award. Only applications submitted in response to an Urgent Guide Notice published by an IC will be allowed to apply to the NOFO once it’s published.
• The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) invites applications for support under the Early Career Research Program (ECRP) in the following program areas: Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR); Basic Energy Sciences (BES); Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Fusion Energy Sciences (FES); High Energy Physics (HEP); Nuclear Physics (NP); Isotope Research and Development and Production (DOE IP). The purpose of this program is to support the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in their careers and to stimulate research careers in the areas supported by SC. SC’s mission is to deliver the scientific discoveries and major scientific tools to transform our understanding of nature and advance the energy, economic, and national security of the United States. SC is the Nation’s largest Federal sponsor of basic research in the physical sciences and the lead Federal agency supporting fundamental scientific research for our Nation’s energy future.
• The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), NIH’s Bioengineering Partnerships with Industry (U01) solicits applications from research partnerships formed by academic and industrial investigators to accelerate the development and adoption of promising bioengineering tools and technologies that can address important biomedical problems. The objectives are to establish these tools and technologies as robust, well-characterized solutions that fulfill an unmet need and are capable of enhancing our understanding of life science processes or the practice of medicine. Awards will focus on supporting multidisciplinary teams that apply an integrative, quantitative bioengineering approach to developing technologies. The goal of the program is to support technological innovations that deliver new capabilities which can realize meaningful solutions within 5 – 10 years.
• The Amazon Science’s Amazon Scholars program is designed for academics from universities around the globe who want to work on large-scale technical challenges while continuing to teach and conduct research at their universities. Scholars can work with Amazon on a flexible basis —including part-time arrangements or during sabbaticals — while maintaining their university positions. The program welcomes academics across career stages, from pre-tenure to senior faculty members. Applications are accepted from academic experts in research areas including, but not limited to: artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, data science, economics, optimization, quantum computing, robotics, statistics, sustainability, operations research, environmental science, and robotics. As an Amazon Scholar, you may: 1) Advise business leaders on strategic plans; 2) Dive deep to solve specific technical problems in an organization's roadmap; 3) Advise junior researchers on methods; or 4) Apply research methods to tackle complex technical challenges.
• The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through its Learning from Abroad to Reimagine Health Knowledge Systems for Equity and Wellbeing program, invites organizations to learn and produce solutions to build a more inclusive and equitable health knowledge system, inspired by other countries that have faced or are currently facing similar health equity challenges. It allows organizations to learn from efforts outside of the U.S. to reimagine and rebuild the health knowledge system in ways that can withstand systemic threats while advancing health equity and wellbeing for the future. Among many other characteristics yet to be identified, our learnings to date suggest that the following contribute to this reimagined version of the health knowledge system: 1) The experience of people most affected by health inequities is centered in the generation of data and evidence and in policymaking; 2) Health is more than the absence of disease. It is about individual and collective healing and wellbeing; 3) Mis- and disinformation are eliminated and public trust in science and evidence is restored; 4) History, culture, and language are preserved and protected, and ecological and biomedical sciences are braided with Indigenous, traditional, holistic, and community frameworks; and 5)Cross-sector approaches and global learning networks break down siloes and allow for more effective and equitable solutions. They leverage lessons from resistance movements and connect artists, researchers, public health, and civil society.
• The major goal of American Federation for Aging Research’s McKnight Brain Research Foundation Innovator Awards in Cognitive Aging and Memory Loss program is to identify emerging scientific leaders by building a cadre of outstanding research scientists across the United States to lead transformative research in the field of cognitive aging. The program targets full-time independent investigators at the rank of Assistant Professor or Associate Professor (or equivalent) with established independent research programs who have already demonstrated a firm commitment to cognitive aging research. It will add substantial start-up support for a period of three years to help these investigators develop and/or expand an outstanding research program in cognitive aging and memory loss. One award will be made to support innovative studies focusing on clinical translational research and another will support innovative studies of basic biological mechanisms underlying cognitive aging and age-related memory loss. It is expected that the proposed research will yield transformative discoveries and thus proposals are invited that are high risk/high gain in nature and that would be less suitable for conventional sources of funding.