Featured Opportunities

September 30, 2026

Arts and Humanities

• The National Endowment for the Humanities’ Curriculum Development: Western Civilization grants strengthen the teaching and study of the humanities at institutions of higher education by developing or enhancing programs, resources, or courses that explore, interpret, and preserve the diversity of human cultures, ideas, and practices, past and present. Projects must be focused on the teaching and study of Western civilization, American history, American government and civics, and/or the Great Books tradition. Projects may take a variety of approaches to the topic(s), drawing on fields such as philosophy, history, languages and literature, political science, archaeology, and classics.

• The Drexel University, Academy of Natural Science’s Eckelberry Fellowships are open to visual artists worldwide whose work focuses on nature, whether as the subject or as part of the environment. At this time we do not accept photography, film or audio works. The primary goal of the endowment is to provide fellowships to artists whose work will be enhanced by first-hand experiences in the field. In addition to expanding primary exposure to nature and opportunities for artistic growth, it is important that whatever is proposed leads to a specific outcome. This might be an exhibition, a publication, or some educational or conservation-oriented project involving the natural world. The application should explain how the fellowship will advance the applicant’s skills and career as an artist for nature.

• The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation is an independent foundation administered at Brown University. It awards a limited number of Fellowships each year for independent projects in selected fields, targeting its support specifically to early mid-career individuals, who have completed at least one major project and demonstrate potential to be future leaders in their fields. Please consult eligibility requirements for further information. Artists and scholars supported by the Howard Foundation are expected to devote a substantial portion of time during the fellowship year to advancing new work. Fellowship funds may be used in combination with sabbatical leaves or other sources of support, but this is not a requirement. Howard Fellowships are intended primarily to provide artists, scholars, and writers with time to complete their work. They are not intended for publication subsidies, for equipment purchase, for preparation of exhibits, or to support institutional programs. 

• Interested in pursuing research on landscape histories with a focus on those narratives that are forgotten or neglected? Researching questions of democracy, the public realm, and place histories? Consider applying for Mellon Fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks. By cultivating a community of scholars engaged in landscape histories defined broadly, we are collectively contributing to the development and expansion of critical questions in the histories of place and communities. The Mellon Fellowships expand opportunities to study histories of landscapes through the lenses of democracy, race, identity, and difference. Applications are encouraged from candidates with a demonstrated capacity for cross-disciplinary scholarship and/or teaching.

Engineering, Mathematics & Physical Sciences

• The National Science Foundation’s Office of International Science and Engineering’s MultiPLEx program seeks to support visionary, and ambitious international multilateral research partnerships that are required to hasten progress in addressing grand challenges by leveraging research excellence in the U.S. and around the globe. The program also seeks to advance understanding of effective multilateral collaboration. MultiPLEx  welcomes proposals that: 1) Address urgent research and/or societal challenge of global importance (including but not limited to critical and emerging technology research) and require an inherently international multilateral approach to achieve impactful research results, partnering with at least two countries other than the U.S. Proposals that engage partners across distinct geographic regions are an area of interest; 2) Make clear how the proposed international collaboration will enable research advances and broader impacts that go beyond what can be accomplished by a narrower team AND 3) Include a diverse group of U.S. institutions and/or individuals, leveraging the full range of talent that society has to offer. MultiPLEx funds support the U.S. research team. Research partners should seek funding from their own national funding agencies or from other sources. A typical MultiPLEx award will be up to three years in duration.   

• The Department of Defense’s Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), one element of the University Research Initiatives (URI), addresses high-risk basic research and attempts to understand or achieve something that has never been done before. The program was initiated over 40 years ago and it has regularly produced significant scientific breakthroughs with far reaching consequences to the fields of science, economic growth, and revolutionary new military technologies. Key to the program’s success is the close management of the MURI projects by Service Program Officers and their active role in providing research guidance. The MURI program specifically supports U.S. university teams investigating complex, DoW-relevant problem sets at the intersection of multiple scientific disciplines. MURI teams bring together world-class faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and graduate students—helping to develop a technically advanced, defense-aware scientific workforce and strengthen the U.S. defense industrial base.

• The Department of Defense, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO), through its Office-wide BAA, is soliciting proposals which investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems for national security applications. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. DSO Office-wide BAA invites proposers to submit innovative basic or applied research concepts or studies and analysis proposals. Proposals in novel areas DSO has not considered are welcome. However, if the proposal addresses one or more of the following technical thrust areas, please indicate which one(s) in your submission: (1) Materials, Manufacturing, and Energy Systems, (2) Sensing, Measuring, and Affecting, (3) Math, Computation, and Processing, and (4) Complex, Dynamic, and Intelligent Systems. Each thrust area description below (in Section B) includes a list of example research topics highlighting several (but not all) potential areas of interest. Proposals must investigate innovative research approaches that enable revolutionary advances. DSO is explicitly not interested in approaches or technologies primarily resulting in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice or are for manufacturing scale-up.

• The Department of Defense, Defense Security Cooperation Agency’s (DSCA) Defense Security Cooperation University (DSCU) promotes access to and production of knowledge on security cooperation. Security cooperation refers to “all Department of Defense (DoD) interactions with foreign security establishments that build and develop allied and partner security capabilities and capacity for self-defense and multinational operations, provide the Armed Forces of the United States with access to the foreign country during peacetime or a contingency operation, and build relationships that promote specific United States security interests. Evidence-, theory, and data-building activities that contribute to the body of knowledge on security cooperation or irregular warfare, and that result in lessons that can be applied to practice, are the primary focus of the Research Grants NFO. Research products sponsored through this NFO must be unclassified and publicly accessible. DSCU expects awardees to participate in conferences, seminars, focus groups and events, and to make final research products and supporting data (if applicable) easily accessible to the public, in order to enhance dissemination of research findings and facilitate application of lessons learned in areas of policy, practice, and workforce professionalization.

• The National Science Foundation’s Engineering Biological and Biomedical Systems (EBBS) program expands our understanding of biological and physiological systems, and it helps improve human health. For U.S. leadership in biotechnology, the engineering of biology is required at every scale. Engineering is needed for sensing biomarkers to making proteins to restoring functions of the body. In EBBS, fundamental mechanistic insights are combined with experimental and computational techniques. This approach helps develop platforms, devices, organisms, tissues, and processes that bring new understanding and control of biological functions. EBBS supports studies of mechanisms that drive the behavior of microbial populations and cells, and of therapeutic cells and tissues. This includes discovering the underlying engineering principles that are needed to capture the responses of biological systems and bioreactors. It also includes the creation of novel biosensing platforms and new optical imaging and modulation strategies. Research that enables the design of biological systems to sense and respond to novel stimuli is welcome. Similarly, projects leading to insight into tissue changes or injury, and to systems that imitate or restore the functions of tissues or organs are encouraged.

• Plasma science is a transdisciplinary field of research where foundational studies in many disciplines, including plasma physics, plasma chemistry, materials science, and space science, come together to advance knowledge and drive discovery and technological innovation. The primary goal of the National Science Foundation’s ECosystem for Leading Innovation in Plasma Science and Engineering (ECLIPSE) program is to identify and capitalize on opportunities for bringing foundational plasma science investigations to bear on problems of societal and technological need within the scope of science and engineering supported by the participating NSF programs. The ECLIPSE meta-program has been created to foster an inclusive community of scientists and engineers, an ecosystem spanning multiple NSF Directorates, in the pursuit of translational research at the interface of foundational plasma science and technological innovation. The ECLIPSE program builds on NSF's long history of leadership in supporting multi-disciplinary research in plasma science and engineering and is intended to enhance organizational unity within NSF by considering proposals and supporting projects that may otherwise struggle to find a natural home within the Foundation.

Health and Life Sciences

• The National Science Foundation’s Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) program supports the generation of extended time series of data to address important questions in evolutionary biology, ecology, and ecosystem science. Research areas include, but are not limited to, the effects of natural selection or other evolutionary processes on populations, communities, or ecosystems; the effects of interspecific interactions that vary over time and space; population or community dynamics for organisms that have extended life spans and long turnover times; feedbacks between ecological and evolutionary processes; pools of materials such as nutrients in soils that turn over at intermediate to longer time scales; and external forcing functions such as climatic cycles that operate over long return intervals. All proposals submitted through the LTREB solicitation are processed by 1 of the 3 clusters in the Division of Environmental Biology: Ecosystem Science, Population and Community Ecology, and Evolutionary Processes. Proposals must address topics supported by these clusters. Researchers who are uncertain about the suitability of their project for the LTREB Program are encouraged to contact the cognizant Program Officer.

• The purpose of the Damon Runyon Quantitative Biology Fellowship is to identify computational scientists who innovatively combine quantitative analyses and modeling to solve biological questions. To achieve this goal the award program will support computational scientists who are deeply connected to biology labs so that they can bring their computational skills to bear on important biological questions, particularly in cancer. Additionally, the proposed mentored research training must reflect the individual's potential to develop into a productive, independent cancer research scientist. This award program encourages scientists, trained in fields such as mathematics, computer science, physics, engineering, and/or a related field, to pursue research careers in computational biology under the joint mentorship of leaders in both computational science (“dry lab”) and cancer biology (“wet lab”). By investing in this area, Damon Runyon will bring additional attention to the importance of these specially trained scientists for making meaningful progress in cancer biology. The Foundation encourages all theoretical and experimental research relevant to the study of cancer and the search for cancer causes, mechanisms, therapies and prevention including molecular approaches to cancer prevention for inherited cancers.

• The Department of Defense, Army Medical Research and Development Command’s (USAMRD) mission is to provide solutions to medical problems of importance to the American Service Member at home and abroad, as well as to the general public at large. The scope of this effort and the priorities attached to specific projects are influenced by changes in military and civilian medical science and technology (S&T), operational requirements, military threat assessments, and national defense strategies. Extramural research and development programs play a vital role in the fulfillment of the objectives established by the USAMRDC. General information on the USAMRDC can be obtained at https://mrdc.health.mil/. The Department of Defense, Defense Health Agency (DHA) Research & Development FY23-FY27 BROAD AGENCY ANNOUNCEMENT for Extramural Medical Research is intended to solicit extramural research and development ideas. Projects funded under this BAA must be for basic and applied research to support scientific study and experimentation directed toward advancing the state-of-the-art or increasing knowledge or understanding rather than focusing on development of a specific system or hardware solution. Research and development funded through this BAA are intended and expected to benefit and inform both military and civilian medical practice and knowledge.

Social Sciences

• The American Heritage Center (AHC) at the University of Wyoming (UW) announces the fall and spring cycles of its Travel Grant Program. The AHC offers a total of ten travel grants annually; five grants each in the spring and fall application cycles. Each grant provides $750 to support research projects that utilize the Center's extensive collections. They welcome applications from a diverse range of scholars at all stages of their academic careers from graduate students to established scholars. Their collections span regional, national, and international subjects with particular strengths in the American West and topics that intersect with global cultural, environmental, and industrial developments. Explore our collections on Archives West. 

• The Department of Health and Human Services, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), in collaboration with other National Institutes of Health (NIH) Institutes, Centers, and Offices, intends to support research projects that directly improve or evaluate biomedical and behavioral rigor, replicability, and reproducibility. Example projects include, but are not limited to: 1) Assessing the scientific and behavioral impact of improving rigor, replicability, and reproducibility; 2) Developing decision-making frameworks to select candidate studies for replication with the highest potential for scientific value or novel insights; and 3) Measuring replicability, reproducibility, robustness, and generalizability of important research findings to accelerate scientific innovation. Applications are not being solicited at this time. This notice is to allow applicants time to develop collaborations and responsive projects.