- Awards are $25,000 each and support projects lasting one year, starting on September 1 of the award year.
- The Foundation aims to award six new Youth Service Improvement Grants annually.
Please check back regularly to learn of new funding opportunities from federal agencies, and foundations dedicated to social science research. Internal (BU) funding sources are provided on the Faculty Opportunities page. If you would like to announce a funding opportunity, please share with CISS using the Contact form here.
BU’s Successful Proposal Library – Consider donating your own successful proposal to the library.Search for Funding
Road Scholar Educator Legacy Award will celebrate one remarkable retiring educator who has left a lasting legacy on the lives of their students. Between now and March 31, the public is invited to nominate a recently retired or soon-to-retire teacher or administrator for the award. One exceptional educator will win a $5,000 Road Scholar voucher to embark on a Road Scholar program of their choice and jump-start their lifelong learning journey in retirement. 🗓️ Application Deadline: March 31, 2025 Posted 02/6/25 View the webinar, held on February 26, 2025, in which Program Administrative Assistant Maya Simeon and Senior Vice President Kim DuMont discuss the background and goals of the program, as well as provide an overview of eligibility details, required materials, and review criteria. Maya and Kim also go through a sample proposal piece by piece to illustrate what goes into a competitive application. Awards 🗓️ Application Deadline: April 2, 2025 Posted 03/13/25 Limited Nomination Opportunity: Council of Graduate Schools 2025 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities The Gustave O. Arlt Award Committee in the Humanities requests nominations for the 2025 competition in the field of English and North American Language and Literature. Gustave O. Arlt (1895-1986) was the first president of the Council of Graduate Schools, a former faculty member and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of California Los Angeles, and a scholar of German language and literature. In 1971 he established the award that bears his name to provide recognition, each year, to a young scholar who has written a book that represents an outstanding contribution to scholarship in the humanities. FUNDING INFORMATION: No funding is provided with this award. ELIGIBILITY RESTRICTIONS: BU can nominate one candidate. Work that is interdisciplinary is welcome so long as the book the candidate is being nominated for draws heavily from the methods and scholarship of English and North American Language and Literature. The recipient must: The book for which they are being nominated must: INTERNAL SELECTION PROCESS: Interested nominators should submit the following materials via InfoReady Review by: 4/2/2025 🗓️ Application Deadline: Internal Materials Due: Wednesday, April 2, 2025 by 11:59 pm Sponsor Deadline: Wednesday, April 30, 2025 Posted 03/11/25 Posted 02/25/25 MIT Solve Challenges 2025 Challenges Purpose: To find and scale the best ideas to the most intractable issues of our time though open innovation challenges seeking technology-based solutions. The following challenges are currently open: Indigenous Communities Fellowship: supporting community-based solutions by and for Indigenous communities across the USA and Canada with a particular interest in: Global Economic Prosperity Challenge: supporting exceptional technology-driven solutions to increase economic prosperity for all, with focus on: 🗓️ Application Deadline: April 17, 2025 (application deadline, except for Trinity Challenge) Funding: Trinity Challenge: Community Access to Effective Antibiotics: seeking to use data and technology to improve stock control and/or reduce the use of substandard and falsified oral antibiotics for community use in low- and middle-income countries. Funding: Up to £500,000 over 2 years 🗓️ Application Deadline Trinity Challenge: April 24, 2025 (application deadline) Posted 03/3/25 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Climate Change & Human Health Seed Grants Purpose: To support new collaborations between researchers in disconnected fields, especially activities that integrate basic biomedical science with fields like ecology, environmental science, geology, geography, and planetary science, alongside population studies such as epidemiology, public health, demography, economics, and urban planning. The program encourages: Eligibility: Applicant organizations may submit multiple proposals, but an individual may only serve as a PI on 1 application. Proposals from single institutions must develop partnerships that do not already occur naturally. Proposals from more than one institution are responsive. Funding: up to $50,000, no IDC 🗓️ Application Deadline: April 24, 2025, Rolling applications will be reviewed quarterly through July 2026. Keywords: Climate Change; Health; Medical Research Posted 12/17/24 Purpose: To recognize outstanding efforts enhancing research across natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities, fostering research quality awareness. Contributions should align with the following: (i) Reproducibility & research quality, (ii) MetaScience (Research on Research), (iii) Identifying research standards and incentives, and (iv) Increasing diversity in research. The funder makes three awards: 🗓️ Application Deadline: April 30, 2025 (submission deadline) , November 2025 (award announcement) Gerda Henkel Stiftung Forced Migration To support internationally oriented, multidimensional research on forced migration. Proposals that incorporate intersectional perspectives and issues are highly desirable, and cooperation with local knowledge-producers, including people with lived experience of displacement in countries of origin or asylum, researchers and civil society actors (particularly in the “Global South”), is strongly encouraged. Projects should focus on theoretical and practical questions, particularly within the following research areas: (i) Forced migration infrastructures, (ii) South-South (im)mobilities, (iii) Multiple displacements, (iv) Displaced people’s agency, and (iv) (Supra-)state influences on displacement processes. Funding: up to $96,000 stipend over 2 years, no IDC. · Faculty Awards: €3,720 ($4,000)/month · Postdoctoral Awards: €2,760 ($3,000)/month · PhD Awards: €1,920 ($2,000)/month Additional funding is available for children and additional travel and material aid provided as needed. 🗓️ Application Deadline: May 5, 2025 Posted 12/6/24 William T Grant Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence This program funds research studies that advance theory and build empirical knowledge on ways to improve the use of research evidence by policymakers, agency leaders, organizational managers, intermediaries, and other decision-makers that shape youth-serving systems in the United States. 🗓️ Application Deadline: May 7, 2025 Info Webinar: An Overview of the Program and How to Apply: We welcome studies that reveal the strategies, mechanisms, or conditions for improving research use. We also encourage evaluations of deliberate efforts to increase routine and beneficial uses of research in decision-making and testing whether strategies that improve the use of research evidence in turn improve decision-making and youth outcomes. We are also interested in measurement studies to develop the tools necessary to capture changes in the nature and degree of research use. Finally, we welcome critical perspectives that inform studies’ research questions, methods, and interpretation of findings. Posted 12/2/24 Gerda Henkel Stiftung General Research Grants Purpose: To support research projects within the fields of archaeology, history of art, historical Islamic studies, history, history of law, history of science, prehistory, and early history. Eligibility: Applications may be made by postdoctoral candidates or scholars with postdoctoral lecture qualification. Postdoctoral researchers must have received their PhD within the last 10 years. Dissertation must have already been published at the time the application is made, and the topic of the proposed research project must clearly differ from the topic of the PhD thesis. Any prior Gerda Henkel Foundation must have been granted at least 5 years earlier. Funding: up to $96,000 stipend over 2 years, no IDC. · Faculty Awards: €3,720 ($4,000)/month · Postdoctoral Awards: €2,760 ($3,000)/month Additional funding is available for children and additional travel and material aid provided as needed. 🗓️ Application Deadline: May 26, 2025 Posted 12/6/24Spring 2025 Opportunities
William T. Grant Foundation Youth Service Improvement Grants The program supports activities to improve the quality of direct services for young people ages 5 to 25 in the five boroughs of New York City. The goal of the program is to strengthen existing services by helping youth-serving nonprofit organizations address challenges or remedy problems at the point of service, where staff and youth interact.
Purpose: To provide funding for health-related research that has the near-term potential to improve health, well-being, and the quality and equity of care in long term care facilities, for adults who are age 65+ and are long term residents in nursing homes, assisted living, and other congregate care facilities. Proposed research must: (i) use existing datasets rather than new data collected for this study and (ii) include stakeholders from clinical, programmatic, or policy arenas on project team to inform research. High priority topics include:
Eligibility: Applicants must hold Ph.D. or Equivalent. Applicants must demonstrate how their research question is important to stakeholders in the policy or delivery arena. Stakeholder organizations cannot be the applicant organization. Grantees may use this award to augment funding for a project already funded through another grant.
Funding: Total program funding amount is ~$1.3 million and is expected to fund 4-5 projects this cycle. Projects funded by this program in previous cycles ranged from $120,000 to $220,000 over 2 years.
🗓️ Application Deadline: April 8, 2025 (LOI Deadline)
July 1, 2025 (Invited Application Deadline)Meet the Funder recording: https://www.bu.edu/research/2024/12/13/meet-the-donaghue-foundation/
Posted 03/4/25
Society for the History of Technology Brooke Hindle Postdoctoral Fellowship
Purpose: To supports research in the history of technology. Applicants should either be preparing their dissertation for publication as articles or a monograph or developing a new project based on primary research.
Eligibility: must hold a doctorate in the history of technology or related field, awarded between 9 months before and 4 years after 4/14/25.
Funding: $10,000 over 3+ months.
🗓️ Application Deadline: April 15, 2025
Details and previous recipients: https://www.historyoftechnology.org/about-us/awards-prizes-and-grants/the-hindle-fellowship/
$10,000 prize plus up to $200,000 in additional funding (except for Trinity Challenge)
(i) the development of sustainable health care, care delivery, and biomedical research systems and
(ii) efforts to prepare for health impacts from extreme weather and other large-scale crises.
Public outreach and education on climate-health intersections are also of interest.
The funder has dedicated $1 million towards this program.
Purpose: To support the testing of approaches and tools that organizations can use to improve the value of the healthcare they provide to their patients and communities. The program prioritizes the development of solutions to combat the symptoms of low-value care, including: (i) high and rising healthcare costs, (ii) unwarranted variation in prices, (iii) racial and ethnic disparities in access, prices, and outcomes, (iv) unaffordable cost of care burden on patients and families, (v) unacceptable variation in quality, and (vi) lack of transparency in both price and outcomes.
Eligibility: Open to Ph.D., MD ,(or equivalent) investigators. Applicant must partner with an organization that delivers healthcare services or be a researcher based in a research unit embedded in a healthcare organization. Partner organizations cannot be the applicant organization. Grantees may use this award to augment funding for a project already funded through another grant.
Funding: Up to $500,000 over 2 years, plus 10% IDC
🗓️ Application Deadline:
April 29, 2025 (LOI Deadline)
August 6, 2025 (invited Application Deadline)Meet the Funder recording: https://www.bu.edu/research/2024/12/13/meet-the-donaghue-foundation/
BU Successful Proposal Library: Donaghue Foundation
Posted 03/4/25
Einstein Award for Promoting Quality in Research
Eligibility: Open to researchers and institutions worldwide. Nominations can be made by anyone.
Funding: (award funds must solely be used for scientific purposes)
Details: https://award.einsteinfoundation.de
ARI Releases BAA for Behavioral and Social Sciences The Foundational Science Research Unit (FSRU) within the United States Army Research Institute (ARI) for Behavioral and Social Sciences released its fiscal year (FY) 2026 broad agency announcement (BAA) seeking proposals for its Basic Research program. The mission of the ARI’s basic research program is to “execute high-risk, high-reward foundational research to develop state-of-the-art theory, methods, and models to create the innovative concepts required to support the Army’s future capabilities and needs related to personnel readiness.” This BAA seeks proposals that will contribute to theory along with benefits to the Army. The Basic Research Program focuses on four broad research domains: This BAA will accept three types of proposals: Standard Basic Research Proposals; Targeted Opportunities, which include Early Career Proposals (ECP); and Short-Term Innovative Research (STIR) Proposals. ARI encourages all proposals to emphasize multidisciplinary approaches that “creatively address the research problem.” Total Funding and Award Size: This solicitation has no award floor or ceiling; ARI intends to award 100 proposals. Eligibility: This BAA is open to institutions of higher education, non-profit organizations, and commercial entities, both foreign and domestic. Federally Funded Research & Development Centers (FFRDCs) are not permitted to respond to this solicitation. This solicitation encourages collaboration among eligible applicants. 🗓️ Application Deadline: full proposals are due by 5:00 PM ET on July 1, 2025. Sources and Additional Background: Posted 2/10/25 The online application is now open. 🗓️ Application Deadline: July 1, 2025, 3:00pm ET Posted 3/27/25Summer 2025 Opportunities
ARI requests that proposals focus on novel, state-of-the-art, and multidisciplinary approaches in the behavioral and social sciences. Proposals for this BAA must also align with and provide a scientific foundation for these broad capabilities. Each research domain has strategic objectives, high-priority research questions, and technical points of contact, which can be found in the BAA. ARI will not support proposals that focus on applied research projects, including human factors studies, or proposals focused on physiology, psychopathology, or behavioral health.
NEW William T. Grant Scholars Program
The Diversity & Inclusion Rapid Innovation Initiative Fund is an endowed fund designed to provide support for projects that will advance diversity, equity, and inclusion at the College of Arts & Sciences, specifically by providing the CAS Dean with the means to propel and accelerate curriculum innovation; expand access to experiential learning activities, student-led forums and events; and help fund faculty outreach and recruitment.
The Virginia Sapiro Academic Enhancement Fund (AEF) enables CAS faculty members to build experiential learning (EL) into undergraduate CAS courses, using historic and contemporary Boston as an extended classroom and taking advantage of the city and University as magnets for leading academics, artists, industry professionals, and experts in diverse subject areas. The activities supported by the fund will complement or enrich students’ experience in your course, giving them the opportunity to apply material from class and to learn by doing. Award amounts are typically determined by course enrollment and capped at $45 per student. Current fund levels allow the AEF to support EL activities for approximately 200 students each semester (across multiple courses, if applicable). As of Fall 2024, faculty members receiving awards will be asked to have their students complete a short reflection on their experiential learning activity. Funding is reserved for new or pilot EL initiatives; activities that are a required part of the curriculum and those integral to the course design will not be supported. AEF funds are intended for one-time purposes only. (Requests for recurring funding should be made as part of the annual budget submission process. Please work with administrators in your department or program to prepare the request.) View a list of activities previously funded by the AEF. GeoCAFÉ! We are excited to introduce GeoCAFÉ, a new NSF-funded RCN seeking to accelerate the pace climate and health research by fostering greater collaboration between those who understand and focus on studying the environment from where the triggers of many climate-related health issues arise and experts who study the impact and treatment of health conditions driven by those triggers. As a starting point, we’re now accepting applications from researchers at US academic institutions interested in being part of our first GeoCAFÉ climate and health cohort. Cohort members drawn from the health and geosciences will participate in a series of virtual and in-person events over the next 12 months. Fulbright Canada Entrepreneurship Awards for Specialists are short-term collaborations on curriculum and faculty development, institutional planning and a variety of other activities at Canadian institutions. Specialists receive the necessary resources to transform innovative ideas into successful entrepreneurial endeavours. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Applications are accepted throughout the year. TESS Young Investigator Competition You may already know about the TESS Experiments – short for “Time-Sharing Experiments for the Social Sciences,” a National Science Foundation-funded initiative that provides academic researchers access to NORC’s AmeriSpeak Panel for U.S. population experiments. TESS is holding a special competition for young investigators. Successful applicants will be able to field their experiment using AmeriSpeak at no cost. Bogliasco Foundation The Foundation welcomes applications from individuals doing creative or scholarly work in the following disciplines: archaeology, architecture, classics, dance, film/video, history, landscape architecture, literature, music, philosophy, theater, and visual arts. The Foundation awards approximately 60 Fellowships each year in seven residency periods that run from September through May. An American nonprofit with a program in Italy, the Bogliasco Foundation awards one-month Fellowships to individuals of all ages and nationalities who are developing significant new work in the arts and humanities. Fellows live and work in bucolic surroundings on the coast near Genoa, where natural beauty combines with an intimate group setting to encourage inquiry and transformative exchange across all disciplines. Apply: https://bfny.org/en/apply 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling Collaborative Research Proposals in Sociology as part of the NSF-BSF in Sociology is open to receive applications anytime throughout the year. As part of the NSF-BSF joint program, the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) invites collaborative research proposals in Sociology, in the Social, Behavioral and Economics Sciences (SBE) Directorate at the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). Call for Proposals can be found here. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Applications are welcomed throughout the year. Teagle Foundation Program: Education for American Civic Life The program supports efforts to prepare students to become informed and engaged participants in the civic life of their local and national communities. The funder seeks to elevate the civic objectives of liberal arts education by partnering with institutions offering bold and coherent initiatives that endow students with the content, skills, and sensibility to participate in a political system designed for self-governance. The program is focused on funding in two particular areas: (1) anchoring significant questions in democratic thought in local history and community and (2) strengthening preparation for public service. Funding: up to $300,000 over up to 3 years Proposals for planning grants in the range of $25,000 over 6-12 months are strongly encouraged. 🗓️ Application Deadlines: Concept papers for this initiative will be reviewed three times per year with submissions due by December 1, March 1, and August 1. The Fulbright Specialist Award is designed to provide U.S. and Canadian faculty and professionals with opportunities to collaborate on curriculum and faculty development, institutional planning, and a variety of other activities. Short-term grants of two to six weeks are available to provide leading U.S. scholars and professionals with opportunities to collaborate with their Canadian counterparts. HOW TO APPLY: American scholars and professionals interested in joining the roster of Fulbright Specialists are advised to contact our cooperating agency, World Learning, for detailed program information. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling Colorado specific funding options: El Pomar which focuses on arts and culture, civic and community initiatives, education, health, and human services, learn more. They also offer funding via several additional funds, learn more. Boettcher Foundation, which in 2023 is focused on community connections and their Rural Catalyst Grants, learn more. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling Call for Collaborative Research Proposals in Sociology: NSF-BSF The Sociology Program supports basic research on all forms of human social organization — societies, institutions, groups and demography — and processes of individual and institutional change. The program encourages theoretically focused empirical investigations aimed at improving the explanation of fundamental social processes. Full proposals are accepted throughout the year in all programs. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling Overview of Federal Funding Opportunities for Behavioral and Social Sciences, Arts, and Humanities BU in collaboration with Lewis Burke Associates has produced a compendium of potential funding sources. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling Sawyer Seminars, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer seminars bring together faculty, foreign visitors, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students from a variety of fields for intensive study of subjects chosen by the participants. Each seminar normally meets for one year. Seminar leaders are encouraged also to invite participants from nearby institutions, such as community colleges, liberal arts colleges, museums, research institutes, etc. Awards provide support for one postdoctoral fellow to be recruited through a national (or international) competition, and for the dissertation research of two graduate students. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling Spencer Foundation. The Spencer Foundation, a leading funder of education research since 1971, seeks to improve education, make education systems more equitable, and increase opportunities to learn across the lifespan. The Foundation’s programs provide funding for education-focused research projects, research training fellowships, and additional field-building initiatives. 🗓️ Application Deadline: Rolling NIH Common Fund’s Transformative Health Disparities Research Initiative Community To stimulate transformative research to address health disparities and advance health equity, the NIH Common Fund is developing a new program planned to launch in fiscal year 2023. Through a series of facilitated listening sessions with the community, the NIH Common Fund’s Transformative Research to Address Health Disparities and Advance Health Equity working group seeks your input on new, innovative research into health disparities, minority health, and health equity. 🗓️ Application Deadline: RollingRolling Deadlines
AmeriSpeak is the first U.S. multi-client household panel to combine the speed of panel surveys with enhanced representativeness of the U.S. population, an industry-leading response rate, and the NORC Card, an innovative sample quality report card. AmeriSpeak is the most scientifically rigorous multi-client panel available in the U.S. market. Our sampling captures a true picture of America, providing better representation than other panels for hard-to-reach populations.
While anyone can submit a proposal via the regular TESS mechanism, this Special Competition is limited to investigators who are either graduate students or no more than three years post-PhD / post-residency for MDs. Check out tessexperiments.org for more information and please pass this along to colleagues, graduate students, or anyone you know who might be interested.
If you have any questions or want to learn more about the AmeriSpeak Panel, reach out to us at AmeriSpeak-BD@norc.org.