Funding Opportunities for New Faculty/Young Investigators

Organized by Funding Agency: Dept. of Agriculture (DAG), Dept. of Defense (DOD), Dept. of Energy (DOE), National Aeronautics and Space Admin. (NASA), National Institute of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), and Non-federal Agencies.

Note: The listed agency deadlines for these cyclical opportunities are tentative and based on prior years. Look at the agency's website to find current deadlines.

Federal Agencies

Department of Agriculture

Program	Tentative Agency Deadline	Program Synopsis
National Institute of Food and Agriculture: Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program	Varies by program area	The Food and Agricultural Science Enhancement (FASE) Grants component of this program includes funding for new investigators. A new investigator is defined as an individual who is beginning his/her career, does not have an extensive scientific publication record, and has less than five years postgraduate, career-track experience. The new investigator may not have received competitively awarded Federal research funds with the exception of pre- or postdoctoral research grants or USDA NRI or AFRI Seed Grants.

Department of Defense

Program	Tentative Agency Deadline	Program Synopsis
Young Investigator Program, Office of Naval Research	Early January	ONR’s Young Investigator Program (YIP) seeks to identify and support academic scientists and engineers who are in their first or second full-time tenure-track or tenure-track-equivalent academic appointment and who show exceptional promise for doing creative research. The objectives are to attract outstanding faculty members to the Department of the Navy’s research program, to support their research, and to encourage their teaching and research careers. Proposals may request up to $170,000 per year for three years.
Young Investigator Program, Air Force Office of Scientific Research	July or August	The Air Force YIP supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years and show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for the young investigator to recognize the Air Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. Each award will be funded at the $120,000 level for three years. Exceptional proposals will be considered individually for higher funding levels and longer duration.
Young Faculty Award, DARPA	January	The objective of the DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program is to identify and engage rising research stars in junior faculty positions at U.S. academic institutions and expose them to Department of Defense needs as well as DARPA’s program development process. The YFA program provides funding, mentoring, and industry and DoD contacts to awardees early in their careers so they may develop their research ideas in the context of DoD needs. The program focuses on untenured faculty, emphasizing those without prior DARPA funding. The long-term goal is to develop the next generation of academic scientists, engineers and mathematicians in key disciplines who will focus a significant portion of their career on DoD and national security issues.
Broad Agency Announcement - Young Investigator Program, Army Research Office	Open	The ARO Young Investigator Program is included in the ARO Section of the ARL Core Broad Agency Announcement for Basic and Applied Scientific Research. The objective of the YIP is to attract to Army research outstanding young university faculty members, to support their research, and to encourage their teaching and research careers. This program is open to U.S. citizens, Nationals, and resident aliens holding tenure-track positions at U.S. universities and colleges, who have held their graduate degrees (Ph.D. or equivalent) for fewer than five years at the time of application. YIP awards are up to $50,000 per year for three years.

Department of Energy

Program	Tentative Agency Deadline	Program Synopsis
Early Career Research Program, Office of Science	January for required preapplication, March for application	Supports the development of individual research programs of outstanding scientists early in their careers and stimulates research careers in the disciplines supported by the DOE Office of Science: Advanced Scientific Computing Research; Biological and Environmental Research; Basic Energy Sciences, Fusion Energy Sciences; High Energy Physics, and Nuclear Physics. Applicants must be no more than ten years beyond the Ph.D. at the deadline for the application.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Program	Tentative Agency Deadline	Program Synopsis
New (Early Career) Investigator Program in Earth Science (ROSES program element), NASA	Varies; Applications are solicited every two years	The New (Early Career) Investigator Program in Earth Science, directed towards scientists and/or engineers within five years of their receipt of a terminal degree, is solicited every two years. (It was solicited as part of ROSES-2013.) Proposers can address research, applied sciences, data management, computing, and/or technology issues. The average anticipated award is $80,000-$90,000 per year for a period of up to three years.

National Institutes of Health

Program

Tentative Agency Deadline

Program Synopsis

New and Early Stage Investigator Policies, NIH

In general, a Program Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) is considered a New Investigator if he/she has not previously competed successfully as PD/PI for a substantial NIH independent research award. In 2009, NIH instituted a new adjunct to the New Investigator policies involving the identification of Early Stage Investigators. ESIs are New Investigators who are within 10 years of completing their terminal research degree or within 10 years of completing their medical residency at the time they apply for R01 grants. The NIH New and Early Stage Investigator page includes:

Stephen I. Katz Early Stage Investigator Research Project Grant

Due dates: January 26, 2021; May 26, 2021; September 28, 2021; January 26, 2022; May 26, 2022; September 27, 2022; January 26, 2023; May 26, 2023; September 26, 2023

Link: https://grants.nih.gov/funding/katz-esi-r01.htm

Description

Interested in applying for an NIH Career Development K-Award? Check out the FSU K Scholars website for helpful resources and learn how to get started.

National Science Foundation

Program	Tentative Agency Deadline	Program Synopsis
Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program, NSF	July	The intent of the program is to provide stable support at a sufficient level and duration to enable awardees to develop careers as outstanding researchers and educators who effectively integrate teaching, learning and discovery. The minimum CAREER award size is $400,000 for a five-year period except for the Directorate of Biological Sciences (BIO) or the Office of Polar Programs (OPP). For proposals submitted to BIO or OPP, the minimum award size is $500,000 over five years.

Interested in applying for an NSF CAREER award? Check out the FSU NSF CAREER Toolkit for helpful resources and learn how to get started.

Nonfederal Agencies

Program	Tentative Agency Deadline	Program Synopsis
ABMRF Grants, ABMRF/The Foundation for Alcohol Research	February 15	The Foundation supports research to understand the effects of alcohol on health and behavior. Highest priority is given to young investigators, new to the field or trained in the field, to start a new line of independent research.
Young Investigator Awards, Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation	December	Young Investigator Awards are designed as start-up funds for new scientists at the end of their fellowship training or early in their research career. Demonstration of outstanding mentorship and demonstration of a career plan that shows commitment to pediatric cancer investigation are critical components of a successful application.
Young Investigators Award, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy	September for abstract	The Fund for Discovery awards grants ranging from $250,000 to $500,000 to Young Investigators (tenure track assistant professors) conducting innovative exploratory research.
New Investigator Research Grant, Alzheimer’s Association	February for letter of intent, April for application	Grants provide newly independent investigators with funding that will allow them to develop preliminary or pilot data, to test procedures and to develop hypotheses. Each total award is limited to $100,000 for up to two years. Applicants must be Assistant Professors or above at their respective institution, who have less than 10 years of research experience after receipt of their terminal degree.
Career Development Awards, American Association for Cancer Research	February	Awards provide research support to junior faculty who are in the first five years of a faculty appointment (at the start of the grant term). Multiple grant programs are offered. Program areas include cancer research, angiogenesis research, cancer immunology research, and research in tumor microenvironment.
Scholar Awards, American Asthma Foundation	February	AAF funds innovative research by outstanding investigators from all fields that might impact asthma. Awards of up to $450,000 each will go to investigators in the U.S. who are within 10 years of their first independent faculty appointment. Not accepting grant application in 2018.
Research Scholar Grants, American Cancer Society	April 1 and October 15	Research Scholar Grants support investigator-initiated projects across the cancer research continuum. Independent investigators in the first six years of an independent research career or faculty appointment are eligible.
Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Grants (DNI), American Chemical Society	March	Awards of $110,000 over two years provide start-up funding for scientists and engineers in the United States who are within the first three years of their first academic appointment at the level of Assistant Professor or the equivalent.
Fellowships, American Council of Learned Societies	September or October	Fellowships support research in all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences. The ultimate goal of the project should be a major piece of scholarly work by the applicant. Awards provide up to $35,000 for assistant professor-level investigators for six to twelve months of research.
Junior Faculty Award, Career Development Award, American Diabetes Association	Mid January and mid July	Junior Faculty support new investigators who are establishing their independence in diabetes research; applicants can have any level of faculty appointment up through assistant professor. Career Development Awards are designed to assist outstanding assistant professor level faculty investigators in conducting diabetes-related research.
AFAR Research Grants for Junior Faculty, New Investigator Awards in Alzheimer’s Disease, American Federation for Aging Research	December for letter of intent	AFAR Junior Faculty Grants provides up to $100,000 for a one- to two-year award to junior faculty to conduct research that will serve as the basis for longer term research efforts. New Investigator awards provide up to $100,000 for one or two yearsresearch in areas in which more scientific investigation is needed to improve the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
Young Investigator Grants, American Foundation for Suicide Prevention	November 15	Grants support studies that aim to increase understanding of the causes of suicide and factors related to suicide risk or that test treatments and other interventions designed to prevent suicide. Young Investigator Grants of up to $85,000 over two years are awarded to investigators at or below the level of assistant professor, with an additional $10,000 ($5,000 per year) for an established suicide researcher who will mentor the Young Investigator.
Beginning Grant-In-Aid, National Scientist Development Grant Program, American Heart Association	January	AHA funds research broadly related to cardiovascular disease and stroke and supports research in clinical and basic sciences, bioengineering, biotechnology and public health. Scientist Development Grant applicants should have no more than four years since his/her first faculty/staff appointment at the assistant professor level or its equivalent and must not be funded (extramurally) for more than one year at a level greater than $95,000 per year in direct costs. Beginning Grant-In-Aid applicants must hold a faculty/staff rank up to and including assistant professor (or equivalent), but may not have more than seven years of experience at the assistant professor level.
Liver Scholar Award, American Liver Foundation	December	Applicants must apply within the first three years of his/her first faculty appointment. Funding is provided in the amount of $225,000 over three years for research in liver physiology and disease.
Centennial Fellowships, American Mathematical Association	December 1	The program makes awards to outstanding mathematicians to help further their careers in research. Recipients shall have held the doctoral degree for at least three years and not more than twelve years at the inception of the award. Preference will be given to candidates who have not had extensive fellowship support in the past. Recipients may not hold the Fellowship concurrently with another research fellowship such as a Sloan or NSF postdoctoral fellowship or CAREER award.
Congressional Fellowship Program for Political Scientists, American Political Science Association	December	Gives early- to mid-career political scientists an opportunity to learn more about Congress and the legislative process through direct participation. Fellows work as full-time legislative aides in the House of Representatives or Senate. Applicants must have completed a Ph.D in the past 15 years. Fellowships include a stipend of $38,000.
Research Awards, American Society for Mass Spectrometry	November 30	Academic scientists within four years of joining the tenure-track faculty are eligible for awards of $35,000 for research in mass spectrometry.
New Investigators Research Grant, American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation	April	New scientists earning their latest degree in communication sciences within the last five years are eligible to compete for $5,000 grants to pursue research in audiology or speech-language pathology.
Early Career Investigator Award, Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program	November for letter of intent	This award will fund salary support and research funds for a junior faculty member who wishes to undertake a mentored basic and/or clinical research project in the bleeding disorders field. Provides funding of $100,000 annually for two years.
Beckman Young Investigator Program, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation	August Letter of intent due date	The program provides research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of academic careers in the chemical and life sciences particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments and materials that will open up new avenues of research in science. To be eligible, an applicant should not have completed more than three full years in his or her tenure-track or other comparable independent research appointment. Grants may be in the range of $750,000 for up to four years.
Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards, Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation	January for limited submission application (approximate)	This award funds talented young faculty in the chemical sciences. Criteria for selection include an independent body of scholarship attained within the first five years of their appointment as independent researchers, and a demonstrated commitment to education. Awards are $75,000 for one year.
Career Development Awards, Foundation Fighting Blindness	March	The award is for junior investigators to pursue research to find the therapies and cures for inherited retinal degenerative diseases. Clinical scientists possessing an M.D., D.O., or equivalent foreign degree and who are in their first, second, or third year of a junior faculty appointment are eligible.
Young Investigator Grant for Probiotics Research, Global Probiotics Council	February	Young investigators who are senior fellows with a committed faculty appointment or early faculty members within a maximum of 5 consecutive years of his/her first faculty appointment (appointments must be in the U.S.) are eligible. Applicants must be interested in understanding the health benefits of probiotics and microbiota and the relationship between probiotics, gastrointestinal microbiota and the body.
William T. Grant Scholars Program, William T. Grant Foundation	May for limited submission application (approximate)	The Scholars Program is a professional development program for early-career researchers in the social, behavioral, or health sciences. The Foundation supports research to understand and improve the everyday settings of youth ages 8 to 25 in the U.S. Awards are for $350,000 over 5 years.
Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics	October for limited submission application (approximate)	This career development award enables outstanding junior faculty members to carry out original research that will help resolve important policy and clinical dilemmas at the intersection of ethics and the life sciences.
Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award, Health Effects Institute	April for letter of intent	The award provides three years of funding for a small research project on the health effects of air pollution to a new investigator at the assistant professor or equivalent level.
Young Investigators’ Research Grants, Human Frontier Science Program	March for letter of intent	Research grants are provided for teams of scientists from different countries who wish to combine their expertise in innovative approaches to questions that could not be answered by individual laboratories. Emphasis is placed on novel collaborations that bring together scientists preferably from different disciplines to focus on problems in the life sciences. Young Investigators’ Grants are awarded to teams of researchers, all of whom are within the first five years after obtaining an independent laboratory (e.g., assistant professor, lecturer or equivalent).
Young Investigator Awards, Infectious Diseases Society of America	March	The IDSA Education and Research Foundation and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases have joined forces to offer the IDSA ERF/NFID Joint Research Awards to support needed research by promising young researchers who may not otherwise find funding as federal and other institutional research support becomes more difficult to obtain.
Future Leader Award, International Life Sciences Institute North America	June	The award supports new investigators for research in the areas of experimental nutrition, nutrition and toxicology, and nutrition and food science. Provides $15,000 per year for two years.
Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Awards in the Neurosciences	January	The Award supports young investigators in the early stages of their careers engaged in basic or clinical research that may lead to a better understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The candidate should be within four years of receiving his/her first tenure track appointment. The award of $225,000 is payable over a three-year period. Deadline: February.
Hollis Brownstein Research Grants Program, Leukemia Research Foundation	February	The Foundation provides one year grants of $100,000 to selected New Investigator researchers to allow innovative scientists to act on their ideas and try new procedures and experiments that will hopefully lead to significant breakthroughs. New Investigators are considered to be within seven years of their first independent position.
Young Investigator Grants, Lymphoma Research Foundation	September	Post-Doctoral Fellowships and Clinical Investigator Career Development Awards support training in lymphoma and clinical research. Applicants must have completed two years of their fellowship, or not more than two years as a junior faculty instructor or assistant professor at the start of the award period.
Basil O’Connor Starter Scholar Research Award, March of Dimes	March for letter of nomination	This award is designed to support young scientists just embarking on their independent research careers in areas consonant with those of the March of Dimes mission to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. Applicants may not be recipients of a major grant (e.g., an R01, or other grant exceeding $200,000 a year) at the time of the application.
Scholar Awards, McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience	January	Supports neuroscientists in the early stages of their careers to focus on disorders of learning and memory. The Endowment Fund especially seeks applicants working on problems that, if solved at the basic level, would have immediate and significant impact on clinically relevant issues. Awards are $75,000 per year for three years.
MQ Fellows Programme, MQ: Transforming Mental Health	April for letter of intent, August for invited proposal	Supports early career scientists and clinicians who are asking the difficult and challenging questions that will contribute to transformative advances in mental health research. Awards are up to £75,000 per year for three years.
NARSAD Young Investigator Grants, Brain and Behavior Research Foundation	February	Offers up to $30,000 per year for up to two years to enable promising investigators to either extend research fellowship training or begin careers as independent research faculty. Basic and/or clinical investigators are supported; research must be relevant to serious brain and behavior disorders such as schizophrenia, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, or child and adolescent mental illnesses.
Young Investigator Awards, National Ataxia Foundation	August for letter of intent, September for application	Young Investigator Awards provide one-year grants of $35,000 to encourage young investigators to pursue a career in the field of any form of ataxia research. Young Investigator Awards for SCA Research provide one-year grants of $50,000 to encourage young investigators to pursue a career in spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA) research.
Harry Weaver Neuroscience Scholar Awards, National Multiple Sclerosis Society	August	Supports candidates who have begun academic careers as independent investigators in an area related to multiple sclerosis. Maximum funding is $30,000 in the first year, increasing to $40,000 by the last year of the five-year award.
Research Starter Grants, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Foundation	February 1 for Health Outcomes, Translational Medicine and Therapeutics; September 1 for Informatics, Pharmacology/Toxicology, Pharmaceutics; October 1 for Adherence Improvement Young Investigator Grant Program	The purpose of the PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Grants is to offer financial support to individuals beginning their independent research careers at the faculty level.
Cottrell Scholar Awards, Research Corporation	August	Eligible applicants are tenure-track faculty members at U.S. institutions whose primary appointment is in a department of astronomy, biochemistry, biophysics, chemistry, or physics, but not in a school of medicine or engineering. Eligibility is limited to faculty in the third year after their first tenure-track appointment. Awards total $75,000 for three years.
Innovation Award, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation	July	The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award is designed to provide support for the next generation of exceptionally creative thinkers with “high risk/high reward” ideas that have the potential to significantly impact our understanding of and/or approaches to the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of cancer.
New Investigator Grant, Scleroderma Foundation	September	Supports new investigators who hold faculty or equivalent positions and who wish to pursue a career in research related to systemic sclerosis. Applicants may request up to $50,000 for up to three years.
New Investigator Grant, Scoliosis Research Society	April 1 and October 1	This grant is specifically targeted to new investigators. The maximum award is $25,000 for up to two years.
Searle Scholars Program	August for campus limited submission application (approximate)	The program invites applications from selected universities and research institutions. Awards of $100,00 per year for three years support outstanding young scientists pursuing independent research careers in biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and related areas in chemistry, medicine, and the biological sciences. Candidates should have begun their first appointment as an independent investigator at the assistant professor level on or after July 1 of the year prior to the application year.
Sloan Research Fellowships, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation	September	Fellowships support fundamental research by early-career faculty in chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics. Candidates should be no more than six years from completion of their most recent Ph.D. (or equivalent) as of the year of their nomination. Awards are $50,000 for two years.
Strategy and Policy Fellows Program, Smith Richardson Foundation	June	The program provides grants of $60,000 to support the research and writing of a book by young scholars and policy thinkers (junior or adjunct faculty, research associates, and postdocs) on American foreign policy, international relations, international security, military policy, and diplomatic and military history.
Pilot Research Grant, Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging	February	Provides awards of up to $25,000 to basic and clinical scientists in the early stages of their careers. Applicants must be no more than five years post nuclear medicine/molecular imaging training. Applicants must not have served as the principal investigator of a peer-reviewed grant for more than $50,000 in a single calendar year.
External Faculty Fellowships, Stanford Humanities Center	October	Junior fellowships are for scholars who will be at least three and no more than ten years beyond receipt of the Ph.D. by the start of the fellowship year. Fellowships are for one full academic year, and require the fellow to be in residence. Fellows are awarded stipends of up to $70,000 and a housing and moving allowance of up to $30,000.
Start-Up Research Grant, U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation	November	Projects must have a strong element of cooperation between an Israeli and an American scientist(s), and fall within the areas of research supported in that year by the BSF. In addition, at least one of the principal investigators should have attained his/her Ph.D., M.D. degree or equivalent, no more than ten years prior to submitting the proposal.
Grants-in-Aid, Whitehall Foundation	January 15, April 15, and October 1 for letter of intent	Funds researchers at the assistant professor level in the life sciences. The Foundation is currently interested in basic research in neurobiology. Awards are up to $30,000 for one year.