The McCausland College of Arts and Sciences Grants Office maintains this list of current external funding opportunities for faculty across disciplines. We update the listings monthly to help you discover potential matches for your research, scholarship, and creative activity.
If you're interested in applying for any of the opportunities below, please contact our office for support with the application process.
All external grant applications must go through the university SAM Office (via USCeRA) for unit/college and institutional approvals. Please coordinate USCeRA submission with the CAS Grants Team.
“Please note: Some opportunities may have limited submission policies. Be sure to check details carefully or reach out for clarification.”
| Due Date | Program Announcement | Sponsor | Description | Max Amount | Limited Submission | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3/10/2026 | 2026 LCRF Research Grant on Prevention and Early Detection in Lung Cancer | Lung Cancer Research Foundation | Given the significance and need for early detection of lung cancer and advancements in molecular screening, LCRF continues to offer a funding mechanism to support research projects that facilitate prevention or approaches for early detection of lung cancer. Work supported through this mechanism addresses important questions in non-small cell and small cell lung cancer. This funding mechanism is focused on identifying, characterizing, and developing approaches and techniques that will allow early detection and/or prevention of lung cancer and gaining insight into pre-neoplastic processes in the lungs. The ultimate goal is to detect lung cancer at the earliest stages and subsequently increase survival and survivorship. | $150,000 | No | View more |
| 3/10/2026 | 2026 LCRF Research Grant on Overcoming Resistance in Lung Cancer | Lung Cancer Research Foundation | In 2026, this grant mechanism will focus on furthering the understanding of the development, prevention, and therapy of resistance by supporting projects that seek to identify, characterize, treat or prevent resistance to lung cancer therapies. Work supported through this mechanism will address important mechanistic questions and developmental therapeutics across histological subtypes of lung cancer (including lung adenocarcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma and small cell lung cancer) and across the care continuum including newly designed targeted therapies and immunotherapies. These studies will enhance the momentum of improving lung cancer outcomes and have the potential to increase survivorship. | $150,000 | No | View more |
| 3/10/2026 | 2026 LCRF Leading Edge Research Grant Program | Lung Cancer Research Foundation | Lung cancer continues to be the number one cause of cancer deaths worldwide, accounting for an estimated 125,070 deaths annually in the United States alone. Despite being the most common cancer killer of both men and women, lung cancer research remains critically underfunded. To help close this gap and improve outcomes, the goal of the LCRF Leading Edge Research Grant Program is to fund innovative projects across the full spectrum of basic, translational, clinical, epidemiological, health services, disparities, and social determinants of health research. | $150,000 | No | View more |
| 3/10/2026 | Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship | Social Science Research Council | The Charles E. Lindblom Memorial Fellowship supports an interdisciplinary social science project by an advanced graduate student at one of the member institutions of the College and University Fund for the Social Sciences. One fellowship of $7,500 will be offered to a doctoral candidate pursuing original and interdisciplinary research in economics, political science, sociology, anthropology, and/or history. Applications to the 2026 Lindblom Memorial Fellowship must propose projects that evaluate the efficacy of an intervention to reduce some form of inequality around the globe, including interventions by public, nonprofit, and private organizations. | $7,500 | No | View more |
| 3/11/2026 | Collaboratory to Advance Mathematics Education and Learning for K-12 | NSF | The Collaboratory to Advance Mathematics Education and Learning (CAMEL) for K-12 initiative aims to advance mathematics learning and education through purposeful collaboration that draws on the interdisciplinary Science of Learning (including neuroscience; cognitive, developmental, and social sciences; computer science; machine learning; engineering; and education research), deep experiences in education practice and teaching, and innovations in the use of data science, AI and technology. Through an agreement with philanthropic partners, including the Walton Family Foundation (WFF), CAMEL consists of two phases. Phase I invites proposals for the creation of new research networks to support the generation of high value datasets that aim to advance math learning and education. These research networks must include researchers who study the basic science of learning, education practitioners, and data scientists. The high value dataset may come from either generating a new dataset or by increasing the value of an existing dataset. Phase II, open only to awardees of Phase I, establishes a “collaboratory,” which is a socio-technological platform that prioritizes community-building and capacity-building to sustain collaborative efforts to advance math learning and education in K-12. | $1,500,000 | No | View more |
| 3/11/2026 | Core Research Grants | Russell Sage Foundation | RSF will only accept letters of inquiry (LOIs) under its core programs for Social, Political and Economic Inequality (SPEI), the Future of Work (FOW) and its special initiative Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility (SCD23). | $200,000 | No | View more |
| 3/12/2026 | Career Guidance for Trainees | Burroughs Wellcome Fund | BWF’s Career Guidance for Trainees program this year will offer a career development workshop for early career administrators whose work focuses on the career development of PhD scientists. The workshop will focus on developing participants’ research evaluation skills while creating new career-focused interventions or activities for use at the participants’ home institutions. In the year following the workshop, participants will each develop their research and evaluation networks, develop and run their project with support from a $15,000 grant from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, submit their results for presentation at a national meeting, and rigorously prepare a manuscript for publication. | n/a | No | View more |
| 3/12/2026 | AACR Cancer Disparities Research Fellowship | American Association for Cancer Research | The AACR Cancer Disparities Research Fellowship represents an effort to encourage and support postdoctoral or clinical research fellows to conduct cancer disparities research and to establish a successful career path in this field. The proposed research may be in basic, translational, clinical, or population sciences research and must have direct applicability and relevance to cancer disparities. | $130,000 | No | View more |
| 3/13/2026 | Inspire! Grants for Small Museums | IMLS | Inspire Grants for Small Museums (Inspire) is a special initiative of the Museums for America grant program designed to support small museums of all disciplines in project-based efforts to serve the public through educational programs and exhibits, community partnerships, and collections stewardship activities. | $75,000 | No | View more |
| 3/15/2026 | Research Project Grants (various types) | Scoliosis Research Society | The Biedermann Innovation Research Award shall be designed to support innovative research by young clinical investigators in the field of spine deformity. New investigator research grants are meant to stimulate younger members into a career of investigation in spinal deformity.The SRS-Cotrel Foundation basic science research grant is conceived to support projects that will be performing work in Pediatric Scoliosis. Projects investigating molecular and cellular mechanisms, medical imaging as well as characterizing biomechanical aspects underlying the disease are eligible.The expectation for a standard research grant is that the successfully completed project would be of a quality of a well-received podium presentation at the SRS Annual Meeting. The Society expects that these grants will lay the foundation for a sustained avenue of investigation and allow the investigator(s) to seek larger grants from sources such as the NIH or OREF. Investigators who have been funded at this level should not plan on nor expect that the “next step” in a project will be funded by the SRS after completion of their initial work. | n/a | No | View more |
| 3/17/2026 | Thrasher Research Fund | Early Career Awards | The purpose of this program is to encourage the development of researchers in child health by awarding small grants to new researchers, helping them gain a foothold in this important area. The goal is to fund applicants who will go on to be independent investigators. The Fund will make up to 32 awards total with two funding cycles (16 awards each). | $25,000 | No | View more |
| 3/17/2026 | Early-Career Faculty Support for Interdisciplinary Energy System Research | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation | The Energy and Environment program at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation supports research, training, networking, and dissemination efforts to inform the societal transition toward low-carbon energy systems in the United States by investigating economic, environmental, technological, and distributional issues. The program is inviting Letters of Inquiry from early-career faculty at the outset of their academic careers who are focusing on undertaking innovative interdisciplinary social science research related to the transition to a low-carbon economy in the United States. This Call for Letters of Inquiry is deliberately framed broadly to encourage submissions from a range of scholars drawn from different backgrounds and disciplines. It is expected that approximately 6-8 grants will be awarded from the Call, with grant amounts between $150,000 to $250,000 over a 2-3 year period. | $250,000 | No | View more |
| 3/18/2026 | Marion Milligan Mason Award | AAAS | The Marion Milligan Mason Awards, funded by the Marion Milligan Mason fund, are designed to support Women in the Chemical Sciences to kickstart the research career of promising future senior investigators in the chemical sciences. | $55,000 | No | View More |
| 3/25/2026 | Community Track: Early Career Research Track | National Academies for Sciences, Engineering and Medicine | For the 2026-2028 Application Cycle, the Community track focuses on Climate Risk, Heath & Decision Making. The track invites applied research that identifies how climate-related stressors (e.g., heat, flooding, pollution) affect human health, community resilience, and regional economies. Based on stakeholder or community demand and consultation, fellows should collect and analyze data, create tools, models, or communication approaches that connect climate science to local decision-making and public health interventions. | n/a | No | View More |
| 3/31/2026 | Research-Practice Partnerships: Collaborative Research for Educational Change | Spencer Foundation | The Research-Practice Partnership (RPP) Grants Program is intended to support education research projects that engage in collaborative and participatory partnerships with project budgets up to $400,000 and durations of up to three years. We accept preproposals once a year in this program. We view partnerships as an important approach to knowledge generation and the improvement of education, broadly construed. Over the long term, we anticipate that research conducted by RPPs will result in new insights into the processes, practices, and policies that improve education for learners, educators, families, communities, and institutions where learning and teaching happen (e.g., schools, universities, community centers, parks, museums, other workplaces). | $400,000 | No | View more |
| 4/1/2026 | Causal Research on the Criminal Justice System | Russell Sage Foundation | The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF), in collaboration with the Criminal Justice program at Arnold Ventures (AV) is pleased to announce its second annual grants competition for early-career scholars. Our goal is to cultivate a pipeline of researchers conducting causal research on the criminal justice system. Criminal justice policies and practices include the work of police, courts, jails, prisons, probation and parole, and immigration detention. Proposals must include causal research designs that can reliably isolate the treatment effects of a policy, practice, or intervention. Examples include difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, and randomized controlled trials. Mixed methods projects will be considered if a causal research design is central to the proposal. | $100,000 | No | View more |
| 4/1/2026 | Duke Endowment Grants Health Care Division and Child & Family Wellbeing Division | Duke Endowment | Improving health and reducing health disparities will require communities and the health care systems to innovate. The Duke Endowment Health Care Division looks for opportunities to support the development and testing of new approaches that can outperform the current standard of care. These new approaches will require robust evaluation plans that build the evidence necessary to understand what works and accelerate the systemic reforms necessary to scale and sustain best practices. | n/a | Yes | View more |
| 4/2/2026 | Beebe Fellowship | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine | The Beebe Fellowship program provides an opportunity for a scientist to contribute to the fundamental science at the Radiation Effects Research Foundation (RERF) in Hiroshima, Japan. The fellowship is intended for mid- to senior-level radiation scientists, data scientists, bioinformaticists, clinical data scientists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians and other scientists in fields relevant to RERF. The fellowship is for 3 or 6 months and will include a stipend and travel expenses to Japan. The program is administrated by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine | $100,000 | No | View More |
| 4/03/2026 | Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine | For individuals who are working on the frontlines of science communication, science journalism, or practicing research, and who can demonstrate the potential or ability to develop high-quality, engaging science communications or reporting. | $40,000 | No | View More |
| 4/15/2026 | EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement: EPSCoR Research Fellows | NSF and NASA | Supports early- and mid-career investigators in eligible jurisdictions to develop collaborations at the nation's private, government or academic research institutions. Investigators may be affiliated with institutions of higher education or nonprofits. | n/a | No | View More |
| 4/20/2026 | Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan | N/A | The Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan program is a joint activity of the Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The goals of the program are to promote Japan studies in the United States, to encourage U.S.-Japanese scholarly exchange, and to foster the next generation of Japan scholars in the United States. Awards support research and writing on modern Japanese society and political economy, Japan's international relations, and U.S.-Japan relations. The program encourages innovative research that puts these subjects in wider regional and global contexts, is comparative and contemporary in nature, and contributes to scholarly knowledge or to the general public’s understanding. Appropriate disciplines include anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, linguistics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Awards must lead to a product, such as an article, monograph, book, e-book, digital material, translation, edition, or other scholarly resource. | $60,000 | n/a | View more |
| 4/22/2026 | NEH Fellowships | National Endowment for the Humanities | NEH Fellowships are competitive awards granted to individual scholars pursuing projects that embody exceptional research, rigorous analysis, and clear writing. Applications must clearly articulate a project’s value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. | $60,000 | No | View More |
| 4/22/2026 | Public Scholars | National Endowment for the Humanities | The Public Scholars program offers grants to individual authors for research, writing, travel, and other activities leading to the creation and publication of well-researched nonfiction books in the humanities written for the broad public. Writers with or without an academic affiliation may apply, and no advanced degree is required. | $60,000 | No | View More |
| 5/1/2026 | Air Force Science & Technology Fellowship Program | National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine | The Air Force Science & Technology Fellowship Program (AF STFP) provides nationally competitive fellowship awards for postdoctoral and senior scientists. Selected individuals have the unique opportunity to engage in collaborative research alongside Air Force scientists and engineers within the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), and the U.S. Space Force (USSF). This program offers high-quality research opportunities, aiming to foster innovation and technological advancement within the Air Force through these collaborations. | $100,000 | No | View More |
| 5/1/2026 | Research Program - Phase 1 | W.M. Keck Foundation | Seeks to benefit humanity by supporting Medical Research and Science & Engineering projects that are distinctive and novel in their approach, question the prevailing paradigm, or have the potential to break open new territory in their field. | n/a | No | View more |
| 5/4/2026 | Innovative Research in Cancer Nanotechnology | NIH | The National Cancer Institute (NCI) encourages applications promoting transformative discoveries in cancer biology and/or oncology through the use of nanotechnology. Proposed projects should address overcoming major barriers in cancer biology and/or oncology using nanotechnology and should focus on mechanistic studies to expand the fundamental understanding of nanomaterial and/or nano-device interactions with biological systems. | $475,000 | No | View More |
| 5/4/2026 | Foundations for Digital Twins as Catalyzers of Biomedical Technological Innovation (FDT-BioTech) | NSF | Supports interdisciplinary research projects that explore the mathematical and engineering foundations behind the development and use of digital twins in biomedical and healthcare applications. | n/a | No | View More |
| 5/7/2026 | Trailblazer Award for New and Early Stage Investigators | NIH | This Trailblazer Award is an opportunity for NIH-defined New and Early Stage Investigators to pursue research programs that integrate engineering and the physical sciences with the life and/or biomedical sciences. A Trailblazer project may be exploratory, developmental, proof of concept, or high risk-high impact, and may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven. Importantly, applicants must propose research approaches for which there are minimal or no preliminary data. | $400,000 | No | View More |
| 6/1/2026 | NSF EPSCoR Graduate Fellowship Program (EGFP) | NSF | Supports institutions in EPSCoR jurisdictions by providing funding for graduate fellowships for new or continuing students who received the distinction of NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) Honorable Mention within the last three years. | $795,000 | Yes | View More |
| 6/2/2026 | OUCH-Int’l and LCRF Research Grant Program on the Effects of Air Pollution and Climate Change on Carcinogenesis and Lung Cancer Prevalence | Lung Cancer Research Foundation | Increasing evidence indicates that air pollution is a major cause of lung cancer, and the number of estimated lung cancer deaths attributable to air pollution has increased by nearly 30% since 2007, as smoking has decreased and air pollution has increased. OUCH-Int’l and LCRF Research Grant Program on the Effects of Air Pollution and Climate Change on Carcinogenesis and Lung Cancer Prevalence is a two-year award supporting investigators at any level in their career. This award’s objective is to fund innovative projects to support research that examines the impact of climate change and environmental pollution on lung cancer risk, diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes and identifies strategies to mitigate these effects. | $200,000 | No | View more |
| 7/1/2026 | Archaeology Program Senior Research Awards (Arch-SR) | NSF | Supports archaeological laboratory and field research with the goal of understanding the processes that have shaped past behavior in humans and their fossil relatives. | n/a | No | View More |
| 7/1/2026 | Cottrell Scholar Award | Research Corporation for Science Advancement | The Cottrell Scholar Award honors and helps develop exceptional teacher-scholars recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research and academic leadership. | $120,000 | No | View More |
| 8/04/2026 | Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program NSF 23-519 | NSF | The NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program serves to increase access to multi-user scientific and engineering instrumentation for research and research training. MRI provides support to acquire critical research instrumentation without which advances in fundamental science and engineering research may not otherwise occur. MRI also provides support to obtain next-generation research instruments by developing instruments with new capabilities that open new opportunities to advance the frontiers in science and engineering research. Additionally, an MRI award is expected to enhance research training of students who will become the next generation of instrument users, designers and builders. | n/a | Yes | View more |
| 8/7/2026 | Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program (HEGS) | NSF | The objective of the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program is to support basic scientific research about the nature, causes, consequences, or evolution of the spatial dimensions of human behaviors, activities, and dynamics as well as their interactions with environmental and social processes across a range of scales. Contemporary geographical research encompasses diverse research traditions and methodologies. Recognizing the breadth of the field’s contributions to science, the HEGS Program welcomes proposals for empirically grounded, theoretically engaged, methodologically rigorous, and generalizable research that advances geographical and geospatial sciences. | n/a | No | View more |
| 8/17/2026 | Cultural Anthropology Program Senior Research Awards (CA-SR) | NSF | The primary objective of the Cultural Anthropology Program is to support fundamental, systematic anthropological research and training to increase understanding of the causes, consequences and complexities of human social and cultural variability. The Cultural Anthropology Program welcomes proposals from researchers in all sub-fields of cultural anthropology and research at any temporal or spatial scale. Methodologies and approaches employed may include ethnographic field research, surveys, remote sensing, the collection of bio-markers, experimental research inside or outside of laboratory settings, archival research, the analysis of materials collections and extant data bases, mathematical and computational modeling and other research tools as appropriate for the proposed research. The overarching research goals should be to produce empirically grounded findings that will be generalizable beyond particular case studies and contribute to building a more robust anthropological science of human society and culture. | n/a | No | View more |
| TBD | Landmarks of American History and Culture for Higher Education | NEH | Landmarks of American History and Culture programs for higher education, advanced graduate students, and humanities professionals situate the study of topics and themes in the humanities within sites, areas, or regions of historic and cultural significance to expand participants’ knowledge of and approaches to teaching diverse histories, cultures, and perspectives in the United States and its jurisdictions. | $190,000 | n/a | View more |
| TBD | Institutes for Higher Education Faculty | NEH | NEH-funded institutes are professional development programs that convene higher education faculty from across the nation to deepen their understanding of significant topics in the humanities and enrich their capacity for effective scholarship and teaching. | $220,000 | n/a | View more |
| n/a | Infrastructure Innovation for Biological Research (Innovation) | NSF | The Infrastructure Innovation for Biological Research Program (Innovation) supports research to design novel or greatly improved research tools and methods that advance contemporary biology in any research area supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences at NSF. The Innovation Program focuses on research infrastructure that is broadly applicable to researchers in three programmatic areas: Bioinformatics, Instrumentation, and Research Methods. | n/a | No | View more |
| n/a | Infrastructure Capacity for Biological Research (Capacity) | NSF | The Infrastructure Capacity for Biological Research (Capacity) Program supports the implementation of, scaling of, or major improvements to research tools, products, and services that advance contemporary biology in any research area supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences at NSF. The Capacity Program focuses on building capacity in research infrastructure that is broadly applicable to a wide range of researchers in three programmatic areas: Cyberinfrastructure, Biological Collections, and Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories | n/a | No | View more |
| n/a | Various (see website) | NIH | NIH grant opportunities are numerous and regularly changing across a wide array of component agencies. | n/a | N/A | View more |