External Funding

OPPORTUNITY: National Network for Microelectronics Education (NNME) Regional Node Request for Proposals

FUNDING AGENCY: SEMI Foundation

AWARD AMOUNT: $5,000.000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: December 22, 2025

DESCRIPTION: The National Network for Microelectronics Education (NNME), funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and operated by the SEMI Foundation as the National Network Coordination Hub (“Hub Operator”), is soliciting proposals from regional consortia—hereafter referred to as Regional Nodes, or “Nodes”—to accelerate, expand, and improve microelectronics talent development across the United States.

Selected Regional Nodes will serve as collaborative, place-based partnerships that coordinate education, workforce, and industry partners to launch, scale, and deliver high-quality education and training programs aligned with both local and national semiconductor talent needs.

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OPPORTUNITY: National Fish Passage Program

FUNDING AGENCY: DOI

AWARD AMOUNT: up to $1,000,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: December 31, 2025

DESCRIPTION: The National Fish Passage Program (NFPP) provides technical and financial assistance to partners to remove instream barriers and restore aquatic connectivity, improve community safety, and support local economies. Fish passage projects benefit communities by reducing flood risk, improving recreational opportunities, and improving roads while supporting native fish populations and aquatic ecosystems. NFPP project examples include dam removals, culvert replacements, floodplain restoration, and the installation of fishways. The program is delivered through U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) field offices nationwide. Local Service staff work with partners to identify and implement projects. Projects are based on sound science, advance the Service mission, and promote aquatic connectivity.

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OPPORTUNITY: Geospace Cluster (AGS-GC)

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: Varies

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The Geospace Cluster (GC) in the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) supports fundamental and solutions-oriented research, technology development and education related to the Earth’s near-space environment (including the mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, exosphere, magnetosphere and radiation belts) and the inner heliosphere and solar atmosphere. The GC advances knowledge of the Sun–Earth system, including how various parts of the system are coupled through dynamical, electrodynamical and chemical processes. The GC supports research on the societal impacts of these processes including space weather and upper atmosphere climate change, with the aim of increasing resilience to such natural hazards. The GC supports research that uses ground-based or space-based observational facilities and instruments as well as data centers and a broad range of theoretical, modeling, observational, data analyses and laboratory activities.

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OPPORTUNITY: Analytical Validation of a Candidate Biomarker for Neurological or Neuromuscular Disorders (U01 Clinical Trial Optional)

FUNDING AGENCY: NIH

AWARD AMOUNT: Additional Deadlines: 06/20/25 and into 2026

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: February 21, 2025

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Deadline Varies

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) is to support rigorous analytical validation of method(s) used for measuring biomarkers for neurological and neuromuscular disorders for use in clinical trials or clinical practice. Applicants must justify the unmet need for the biomarker(s) and measurement methods and specify one or two context(s) of use for the biomarker(s). Activities supported include optimizing and evaluating the accuracy, precision, reportable range, and analytical sensitivity and specificity of the detection method across multiple sites and operators and establishing reference intervals and quality control procedures. Multi-site applications are expected but not required.

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) requires a Plan for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives (PEDP).

NOTE: TBD

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OPPORTUNITY: Infrastructure Cluster (AGS-IC)

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: TBD

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) Infrastructure Cluster (IC) is responsible for the oversight of facilities that enable research in the atmospheric and geospace sciences. The IC primarily oversees the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), but it also supports community-based instrumentation and facilities, and data storage and provisioning.

NOTE: Full proposal accepted anytime. Proposals to the Cluster Description are accepted by invitation only. Proposals to specific solicitations, like CIF, FIRP, and DASI should follow those deadlines.

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OPPORTUNITY: Atmosphere Cluster (AGS-AC)

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: TBD

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The Atmosphere Cluster (AC) in the Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences (AGS) supports fundamental studies of atmospheric processes from the Earth’s surface to the stratosphere, and from timescales of nanoseconds to millennia. Core areas of research include the chemical, physical, and dynamical processes in the atmosphere that impact clouds, weather, climate, air quality, and the water cycle. Research methods include modeling, collecting observations, conducting experiments in the laboratory and field, and advancing analytical measurement techniques.

NOTE: Full proposal accepted anytime. Please also refer to the FIRP and P4CLIMATE solicitations for their specific target dates or deadlines.

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OPPORTUNITY: SEEDING CRITICAL ADVANCES FOR LEADING ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES WITH UNTAPPED POTENTIAL (SCALEUP) READY

FUNDING AGENCY: DOE

AWARD AMOUNT: $5,000,000 – $20,000,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) Ready program provides a vital mechanism for the support of innovative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary focus on early-stage transformational energy technologies that require proof of concept.

Technologies that achieve substantial technical advancement under ARPA-E support may still face significant technical and commercial challenges upon completion of an award’s funding period, and thus are at risk of being stranded in their development path once ARPA-E funding ends. Experience across ARPA-E’s diverse energy portfolios, and input from a wide range of investors and industry stakeholders, indicate that pre-commercial scaling projects are critical to establish practical performance and cost parameters. These pre-commercial scaling projects aim to 1) translate the performance achieved at bench scale to commercially scalable versions of the technology, 2) integrate the technology with broader systems, 3) provide extended performance data, and 4) validate the manufacturability and reliability of new energy technologies. Successful scaling projects should enable industry stakeholders to justify the substantial commitments of financial resources, personnel, manufacturing facilities, and materials necessary to subsequently deploy the technologies at a commercial scale.

SCALEUP Ready seeks to scale the most promising technologies previously funded by ARPA-E. The possibility of ARPA-E-funded technologies becoming stranded along their development pathways leaves substantial intellectual property developed with American taxpayer dollars vulnerable to adoption by foreign competitors, who capture it for continued development and economic benefit overseas. This harms national competitiveness, as U.S. industries often fall behind on the development, scaling, and manufacturing of technologies necessary to compete in rapidly evolving global energy markets. Thus, projects selected for SCALEUP Ready will meet ARPA-E’s statutory goals by “accelerating transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty.”1F

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OPPORTUNITY: Multilateral Partnerships Leveraging Excellence

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: $200,000 up to 3 yrs

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The 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 ● 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. ● 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. ● Include a diverse group of U.S. institutions and/or individuals, leveraging the full range of talent that society has to offer

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OPPORTUNITY: Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program (HEGS)

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: $20,000 – $500,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: February 3, 2025

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Deadline Varies

DESCRIPTION: 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.

Because the National Science Foundation’s mandate is to support fundamental scientific research, the HEGS program cannot fund research that takes as its primary goal humanistic interpretations or findings that are not generalizable or reproducible. HEGS welcomes proposals that utilize quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods in novel ways. However, a proposal that applies geographical or geospatial methods to a geographic problem without proposing how that problem provides an opportunity to make a theory-testing or theory-expanding contribution to geographical science, broadly defined, will be returned without review. HEGS supported projects are expected to yield results that will enhance, expand, and transform fundamental geographical theory and geospatial methods and that will have broader impacts that benefit society.

Generally, successful HEGS proposals should describe clear and detailed plans for data collection (including sample selection if appropriate), justification for proposed methods, plans for data analysis, attention to confounding variables, and efforts to address biases (e.g., confirmatory biases, selection biases, etc.). Competitive HEGS proposals should substantiate the validity of findings and generalizability to broader contexts.

NOTE: Additional Deadline 08/01/2025

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OPPORTUNITY: NINDS Ruth L Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) for Training of Postdoctoral Fellows (F32 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

FUNDING AGENCY: NIH

AWARD AMOUNT: TBD

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: February 10, 2025

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Deadline Varies

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this award is to support outstanding scientific training of highly promising postdoctoral candidates with outstanding mentors. Candidates are eligible to apply for support from this program from ~12 months prior to the start of the proposed postdoctoral position to within 12 months (or 18 months fo resubmissions) after starting in the proposed postdoctoral position. This NINDS F32 seeks to foster early, goal-directed planning and to encourage applications for bold and/or innovative projects by the candidate that have the potential for significant impact. Inclusion of preliminary data is strongly discouraged; rather, this F32 seeks innovative research ideas and thoughtful plans for training and mentorship that will facilitate the development of the postdoctoral fellow into an outstanding scientist. Applications are expected to incorporate strong training in quantitative reasoning and the quantitative principles of experimental design and analysis. Support by this program is limited to the first 4 years of a candidate’s activity in a specific laboratory or research environment, so as to further encourage early, thoughtful planning and timely completion of “mentored training” within a particular lab or environment

NOTE: Other deadlines

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OPPORTUNITY: Structure and Physics of the Solid Earth

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: Varies

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The 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.

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OPPORTUNITY: Chemical Evolution of the Solid Earth and Volcanology

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: Varies

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The Chemical Evolution of the Solid Earth and Volcanology (CESEV) program aims to advance fundamental knowledge about the origin and evolution of our home planet including its core, mantle, and continental crust. The program encourages a wide range of laboratory, field, experimental, theoretical, and/or computational studies that explore the continuous high-temperature igneous and metamorphic geochemical and petrologic processes that shape the Earth. Volcanology and magmatic processes, ore deposits and economic geology, and geochronology are all in the purview of this program. Research in these areas can help improve our understanding of volcanic and other natural hazards, and the distribution of mineral and other natural resources.

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OPPORTUNITY: Water, Landscape, and Critical Zone Processes

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: Varies

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: The Water, Landscape, and Critical Zone Processes program supports research on the Earth’s near-surface environment and how that environment responds to change. The Program focuses on the complex interplay amongst and between hydrologic, geomorphic, and geochemical processes and how they regulate the structure and function of the Earth’s near surface. These processes drive weathering and soil development, control water availability and quality, and help regulate the Earth’s climate system, all of which are important for natural resource sustainability and mitigation of natural hazards. It is expected that the research funded in this program will advance fundamental knowledge in Earth surface processes, leading to transformational discoveries in Earth Sciences.

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OPPORTUNITY: Life and Environments Through Time (LET)

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: Varies

DESCRIPTION: The 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.

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OPPORTUNITY: Democracy, Ethics, and Public Trust Initiative

FUNDING AGENCY: Henry Luce Foundation

AWARD AMOUNT: TBD

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: Grant applications for this program are typically submitted by invitation only, however we reserve a limited amount of funding for unsolicited proposals. If you would like to bring your project or organization to the Foundation’s attention, please complete and submit a Concept Note through the grants portal. The Democracy, Ethics, and Public Trust Initiative welcomes proposals related to its three focus areas: 1. Information Ecosystems 2. Communities and Governments 3. Confidence in Democracies

Solicitation >