Featured Opportunities

April 22, 2026

• The Oak Spring Garden Foundation’s Plant Science Research Fellowship is awarded annually to one outstanding, early-career plant scientist, with preference given to scientists working in organismal plant biology. The goal is to provide advanced graduate students, post-docs, and beginning faculty, working in organismal plant biology, with an extended a stay of 2 - 5 weeks on the Oak Spring estate to undertake independent writing and thinking, away from the day-to-day demands of their other responsibilities. This is one of our four most prestigious awards and it includes a $10,000 individual grant. While at OSGF, the Fellow will be able to meet with staff, explore our 700-acre landscape and our efforts in sustainable land management, and visit our rare book library that holds over 19,000 objects, including many examples of botanical art. The Fellowship is well suited for individuals working on dissertations, or writing projects that require dedicated time in a supportive community with minimal distractions.
• The National Science Foundation’s Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 Program (Mid-scale RI-1) supports either design activities or implementation of unique and compelling RI projects. Mid-scale implementation projects may include any combination of equipment, instrumentation, cyberinfrastructure, broadly used large scale datasets and the personnel needed to successfully commission the project. Mid-scale RI-1 design activities include the design efforts intended to lead to eventual implementation of a mid-scale class RI project. Mid-scale RI-1 projects should involve the training of a diverse workforce engaged in the design and implementation of STEM research infrastructure. Mid-scale RI-1 projects should directly enable advances in any of the research domains supported by NSF. Projects may also include upgrades to existing research infrastructure. Mid-scale RI-1 emphasizes strong scientific merit, a response to an identified need of the research community and/or fulfillment of a national need to enable U.S. researchers to be competitive in a global research environment. Well-conceived technical and management plans are essential for both design and implementation proposals, as are well-developed plans (e.g., mentoring and professional development) for student training and the involvement of a diverse STEM workforce in all aspects of mid-scale design and/or implementation activities. The inclusion of individual project participants that will lead to a supportive working environment is especially encouraged at all levels of the project team.
• The Oak Spring Garden Foundation’s Eliza Moore Fellowship for Artistic Excellence is awarded annually to one outstanding, early-career artist who is developing new works that address plants, gardens, or landscapes in the broad sense. This award is open to visual artists, literary artists, dancers, and musicians. The award includes a $10,000 individual grant and requires a 2 - 5 week stay at Oak Spring. While at OSGF, the Fellow will be able to meet with staff, explore our 700-acre landscape and our efforts in sustainable land management, and visit our rare book library that holds over 19,000 objects, including many examples of botanical art. OSGF intends to award the Fellowship to an exceptional artist whose works show remarkable promise to contribute to a deeper understanding of the natural world, and humankind’s place in it.
• The Wenner-Gren Foundation’s Conference and Workshop Grant program supports meetings and events that promote the development of inclusive communities of anthropologists and advance significant and innovative research. Conferences that we support are public events directed at large audiences of anthropologists. We prioritize scholarly gatherings that bring together members of large, international anthropological organizations. Workshops that we support are closed meetings focused on pressing topics in anthropology. Small groups of scholars gather for several days to work intensively on particular themes. Our aim is to help organizers make these conferences and workshops more inclusive and accessible by covering costs for scholars who might not otherwise be able to attend.
• The Department of State, Fulbright Specialist Program, part of the larger Fulbright Program, was established in 2001 by the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. The program is an initiative in which host institutions can invite highly qualified U.S. academic or professional specialists to contribute to and work on projects of shared interest. By sharing their expertise, the host institution and specialist work towards strengthening the linkages between the U.S. and the Danish host institution. Fulbright Denmark accepts projects from host institutions with a named specialist in mind OR so-called open projects, where the concept of the project is articulated but no particular specialist is identified.
• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Early Career Investigator Program in Earth Science (ECIP-ES) is designed to support outstanding scientific research and career development of scientists and engineers at the early stage of their professional careers. As part of the Early Career Research (ECR) Program, this element welcomes innovative research initiatives and seeks to cultivate scientific leadership in Earth System Science to advance the development and implementation of the Earth Science to Action strategy. Compelled by our planet’s rapid change, the Earth Science Division (ESD) is innovating, exploring, and collaborating to understand the Earth system, make new discoveries, and enable solutions for the benefit of all. ESD’s investments in technology, global observation data, groundbreaking foundational science and applications deliver trusted actionable Earth science data that support the US economy, national security through valuable information and tools, decision-making that affects human health, and improve the nation’s ability to forecast and respond to natural hazards and improve quality of life.
• The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Life and Environments Through Time (LET) program supports research that advances knowledge about the patterns and processes relating to the origin and evolution of Earth’s climate, environments, life, and sedimentary record. This research takes place at the molecular, local, regional, and global scales from the Archean Eon through the Holocene epoch. LET-supported research can be useful for predicting and planning for future global change, and for the maintenance and security of ecosystem services and human societies. LET projects address research questions by integrating geobiology, geochemistry, paleobiology, paleoecology, sedimentology, and sedimentary geology archives, proxies, techniques, and concepts. LET welcomes projects that challenge the conceptual bases, have broad implications, and inform future research directions on these disciplines.
• NSF’s Structure and Physics of the Solid Earth Program (SPSE) aims to advance fundamental knowledge about the ongoing dynamical processes over the age of the Earth that evolve the structure of planet Earth and underpin geohazards. SPSE supports research at all temporal and spatial scales, from the Earth's core to its crust. Through laboratory, field, theoretical, and computational studies, the program encompasses a wide range of disciplines including structural geology, tectonics, and geophysics. Research in these areas can help improve our understanding of natural hazards including earthquakes and mass flows, as well as Earth’s formation and its magnetic field. This solicitation supports research in disciplines that include geodesy, geodynamics, geomagnetism, heat flow, mineral physics, potential fields, seismology, structural geology, rock structure, and rock deformation. Within these fields, research can span laboratory, field, theoretical, and/or computational studies.
• The goal of NSF’s Environmental Engineering program is to support potentially transformative fundamental research that applies scientific and engineering principles to 1) prevent, minimize, or re-use solid, liquid, and gaseous discharges of pollution to soil, water, and air by closing resource loops or through other measures; 2) mitigate the ecological and human-health impacts of such releases by smart/adaptive/reactive amendments or manipulation of the environment, and 3) remediate polluted environments through engineered chemical, biological, and/or geo-physical processes. Integral to achieving these goals is a fundamental understanding of the transport and biogeochemical reactivity of pollutants in the environment. Therefore, research on environmental micro/biology, environmental chemistry, and environmental geophysics may be relevant providing the research has a clear objective of protecting human and ecological health. Major areas of interest include (but are not limited to): Building a future without pollution or waste; Sustainable supply and protection of water; Environmental chemistry, fate, and transport of nutrients and contaminants of emerging concern in air, water, soils, and sediments; and Environmental engineering of the built environment.
• The Department of State Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program offers more than 380 awards in more than 120 countries for U.S. citizens to teach, conduct research, and carry out professional projects around the world. College and university faculty, research and development professionals, as well as artists and professional practitioners from a wide range of fields can join nearly 450,000 Fulbrighters who have come away with enhanced skills, new connections, and greater mutual understanding. For the full list of their award offerings, visit the S. Scholars Awards Search. Location, activity type, and eligibility vary across awards. Some awards may be restricted to certain career profiles or disciplines. Awards range from a few months to a full year. Each award outlines the duration and potential start dates, and some offer a Flex option for multiple visits to the host country. All of this information and more is available in the award description. In this week’s Funding Connection, ten such opportunities are highlighted in Ireland, Argentina, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Honduras, and Egypt.
• The Department of Justice (DOJ), NIJ’s Research and Evaluation on Violence Against Women NOFO seeks applications for grant funding to conduct research and evaluation projects examining a broad range of topics to reduce violence against women (VAW), including the crimes of domestic violence (DV) and family violence (FV); intimate partner violence (IPV); rape, sex trafficking, sexual violence (SV); stalking; and teen dating violence (TDV), also known as adolescent relationship abuse (ARA), along with the trauma that results from these crimes and the associated criminal justice system response, procedures, and policies. NIJ also seeks to invest in high-quality evaluations focused on testing programs, practices, models, or interventions aimed at (1) enhancing engagement with the justice system for women and girls who have been victimized and (2) improving accountability within the criminal justice system from individuals who engage in or perpetrate violence against women and girls. This program furthers the DOJ’s mission by supporting the development of new knowledge and tools to address the challenges of crime and justice in the United States through fundamental research.
• The DOJ, NIJ Research Assistantship Program (RAP) offers highly qualified doctoral students the opportunity to bring their expertise to NIJ to work across offices and program areas to obtain a practical and applied research experience. The RAP is a research focused professional development opportunity for doctoral students. We welcome students from all academic disciplines to apply who wish to connect their research to the criminal justice field. This unique assistantship is an opportunity to learn and contribute to the breadth and depth of science research in which NIJ engages. NIJ provides funds to participating universities to pay salaries and other costs associated with research assistants who work on NIJ research activities.