External Funding

OPPORTUNITY: Lloyd J. Old STAR Program

FUNDING AGENCY: Cancer Research Institute

AWARD AMOUNT: $1,500,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: January 15, 2027

DESCRIPTION: Supports mid-career scientists in pursuing high-risk, high-reward research to drive transformative advancements in cancer immunotherapy, emphasizing innovative approaches and impactful contributions to oncology. Focuses on fostering freedom and flexibility for exceptional investigators with a proven track record of reshaping the field.

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OPPORTUNITY: Bioengineering Partnerships with Industry (U01 Clinical Trial Optional)

FUNDING AGENCY: NIH

AWARD AMOUNT: Funding Varies

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: June 27, 2027

DESCRIPTION: This initiative supports academic-industry partnerships to develop innovative bioengineering tools and technologies addressing unmet biomedical needs. Multidisciplinary teams will focus on robust, quantitative approaches to enhance life sciences understanding and medical practice, aiming for impactful solutions within 5–10 years.

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OPPORTUNITY: BRAIN Initiative: Development and Validation of Novel Tools to Probe Cell-Specific and Circuit-Specific Processes in the Brain (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

FUNDING AGENCY: NIH

AWARD AMOUNT: Application budgets are not limited but need to reflect the actual needs of the proposed project

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: February 8, 2027

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative is to encourage research that will develop and validate novel tools to facilitate the detailed analysis of complex circuits and provide insights into cellular interactions that underlie brain function. The new tools and technologies should inform and/or exploit cell-type and/or circuit-level specificity. Plans for validating the utility of the tool/technology will be an essential feature of a successful application. The development of new genetic and non-genetic tools for delivering genes, proteins and chemicals to cells of interest or approaches that are expected to target specific cell types and/or circuits in the nervous system with greater precision and sensitivity than currently established methods are encouraged. Tools that can be used in a number of species/model organisms rather than those restricted to a single species are highly desired. Applications that provide approaches that break through existing technical barriers to substantially improve current capabilities are highly encouraged.

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OPPORTUNITY: The Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation: Wave-Based Computing

FUNDING AGENCY: NSF

AWARD AMOUNT: $200,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: February 11, 2027

DESCRIPTION: This initiative supports transformative research in wave dynamics to develop novel computing approaches. It aims to expand foundational engineering knowledge, address strategic technology priorities, and contribute to long-term national science and technology missions.

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OPPORTUNITY: Investigator Initiated Research in Computational Genomics and Data Science (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

FUNDING AGENCY: NIH

AWARD AMOUNT: $275,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: February 16, 2027

DESCRIPTION: The purpose of this renewing Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to support investigator-initiated research efforts fostering innovation in computational genomics, data science, statistics, bioinformatics, and data visualization and exploration.

This NOFO supports development of innovative analytical methodologies and approaches and early-stage tools and software for genomics, rather than incremental advances or modification and application of existing approaches. Projects should be enabling for genomics research, broadly applicable to human health and disease, and generalizable across diseases and biological systems.

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OPPORTUNITY: Short Courses on Innovative Methodologies and Approaches in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (R25)

FUNDING AGENCY: NIH

AWARD AMOUNT: $200,000/yr up to 4 years

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: April 9, 2027

DESCRIPTION: This RFA is to support courses for skills development in cross-cutting methodologies and analytics that are needed to advance behavioral and social sciences research (BSSR) but are not well-addressed by existing educational programs widely available to the BSSR community. A definition of BSSR can be found at (https//obssr.od.nih.gov/about/bssr-definition/). Short courses supported by this RFA should develop, implement, evaluate, and disseminate education and training focused on innovative methods for BSSR. Methodological domains of focus include, but are not limited to, innovative data collection methodologies and analytic techniques, analysis and linking of big data (“Big data” in this NOFO refers to large, complex, longitudinal, and/or distributed data sets generated from administrative data systems or health systems, instruments, sensors, devices, internet transactions, email, video, click streams, and/or all other digital sources available today and in the future), or needed but underutilized designs to advance research across the translational spectrum

Proposed educational programs should be integrative, both in the transdisciplinary nature of the skills and approaches taught and in applicability across a wide range of BSSR areas. The content of the course should focus on knowledge and skills necessary for the advancement of behavioral and social sciences and/or the integration of BSSR with other areas of science and technology. Content should not be limited to specific disease applications but rather focus on generally applicable research methodologies and analytics crucial for more advanced BSSR.

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OPPORTUNITY: Laboratory Flexible Funding Model (LFFM)

FUNDING AGENCY: Food and Drug Administration

AWARD AMOUNT: up to $1,500,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Deadline Varies

DESCRIPTION: This cooperative agreement is intended to enhance the capacity and capabilities of state human and animal food testing laboratories in support of an integrated food safety system (IFSS). This is achieved through prioritized sample testing and food defense preparedness in the areas of microbiology, chemistry, and radiochemistry, as well as method development and capacity/capability development projects that support and expand food safety and food defense testing.

This project will strengthen and improve FDA’s efforts to prevent foodborne illnesses and minimize foodborne exposures through building a nationally integrated laboratory science system and equip our partner laboratories with additional resources that can be employed to build and increase sample throughput capacity within their state.

NOTE: Other deadlines

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OPPORTUNITY: Foundations of Trusted Systems

FUNDING AGENCY: DOD

AWARD AMOUNT: up to $5,000,000

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: December 4, 2028

DESCRIPTION: The Air Force Research Laboratory is soliciting white papers under this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for research, development, integration, test and evaluation of technologies/techniques to establish trusted foundations for hardware and software that enables secure, resilient and affordable Command, Control, Communications, Computers, and Intelligence (C4I) and Cyber technologies (C4I and Cyber Technologies) information processing systems.

Research Areas: ● Trusted, Secure, and Resilient Computational Systems ● Trusted and Assured Software ● Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) ● AI in Trusted Systems ● Digital Engineering Model-based Analysis

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OPPORTUNITY: Air Dominance Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)

FUNDING AGENCY: DOD

AWARD AMOUNT: Varies

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: This is a BAA of the Air Force Research Laboratory, Munitions Directorate (AFRL/RW) under the provisions of Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) paragraph 6.102(d)(2), which provides for competitive selection of research proposals. Proposals submitted in response to the BAA that are selected for award are considered to be the results of full and open competition and in full compliance with the provisions of PL 98-369, the Competition in Contracting Act of 1984.

For purposes of this announcement, research is defined to be scientific study and experimentation directed at increasing knowledge and understanding in relation to long term national security needs. It is an enhancement to related exploratory and advanced development programs. A program should be designed to demonstrate well-defined and substantive research results, should not be overly ambitious or open-ended, and should not be a paper study that inherently requires a substantial testing effort. Any significant testing is unlikely; however, there is a possibility of experimental testing to support battle lab experiments proposed under this BAA. Programs to support Team Eglin Technology Demonstration Programs may also be considered under this BAA.

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OPPORTUNITY: Automated Processes for Knowledge Discovery and Information Retrieval

FUNDING AGENCY: DOD

AWARD AMOUNT: $3,000,000 – $35,000,000

LETTER OF INTENT DEADLINE: September 9, 2029

DESCRIPTION: Seeking innovative research to develop, demonstrate, integrate, test, evaluate, and deliver technologies that process and exploit multi-source, multi-domain classified, open source, non-traditional source data to improve Battlespace Awareness, derive decision quality information, and automate analysis/decision processes.

NOTE: Air Force Research Laboratory

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OPPORTUNITY: Staff Research Program – US Army Materiel Command (AMC)

FUNDING AGENCY: DOD

AWARD AMOUNT: TBD

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: June 2, 2030

FULL PROPOSAL DEADLINE: Rolling Deadline

DESCRIPTION: Abstract The ARO is soliciting proposals for Staff Research Program opportunities. The purpose of the program is to enable ARO scientific staff to maintain and expand professional competence in support of fulfilling the ARO mission through the conduct of hands-on, basic research. The staff research will be performed collaboratively with institutions external to ARO. Staff research efforts will involve scientific study directed toward advancing the state-of-the-art or increasing knowledge and scientific understanding in engineering, physical, life and information sciences, when there is an intersection with the interests and capabilities of the participating external institutions in these basic research areas.

Solicitation >