Foundations & Others

Slots: An institution may nominate more than one candidate, but only one applicant may be nominated from a major division of an institution each year (e.g., College of Arts and Sciences, Medical School).

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Contact your School’s Dean/Dean’s Office if interested in this opportunity.

Mentor and Reference Letter Deadline: June 14, 2023, 3pm EST

External Deadline: July 5, 2023, 3pm EST

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: 4-6

Anticipated Award Amount: $350,000, distributed over 5 years.

Who May Serve as PI: Applicants must have received their terminal degree within seven years of submitting their application. We calculate this by adding seven to the year the doctoral degree was conferred. In medicine, the seven-year maximum is dated from the completion of the first residency. The month in which the degree was conferred or residency completed does not matter for this calculation.

Applicants must be employed in career-ladder positions. For many applicants, this means holding a tenure-track position in a university. Applicants in other types of organizations should be in positions in which there is a pathway to advancement in a research career at the organization and the organization is fiscally responsible for the applicant’s position. The award may not be used as a post-doctoral fellowship

Link to Award: https://wtgrantfoundation.org/grants/william-t-grant-scholars-program

Process for Limited Submissions

Please contact your School’s Dean’s Office if you are interested in this program. Since the Dean is the person who must be the nominator for the William T. Grant Scholars Program, they will need to coordinate this limited submission instead of us.

Purpose

The William T. Grant Scholars Program supports career development for promising early-career researchers. The program funds five-year research and mentoring plans that significantly expand researchers’ expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas.

Applicants should have a track record of conducting high-quality research and an interest in pursuing a significant shift in their trajectories as researchers. We recognize that early-career researchers are rarely given incentives or support to take measured risks in their work, so this award includes a mentoring component, as well as a supportive academic community.

Awards are based on applicants’ potential to become influential researchers, as well as their plans to expand their expertise in new and significant ways. The application should make a cohesive argument for how the applicant will expand his or her expertise. The research plan should evolve in conjunction with the development of new expertise, and the mentoring plan should describe how the proposed mentors will support applicants in acquiring that expertise. Proposed research plans must address questions that are relevant to policy and practice in the Foundation’s focus areas.

The Foundation’s mission is to support research to improve the lives of young people ages 5-25 in the United States. We pursue this mission by supporting research within two focus areas. Researchers interested in applying for a William T. Grant Scholars Award must select one focus area:

Reducing Inequality

In this focus area, we support studies that aim to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people, especially on the basis of race, ethnicity, economic standing, language minority status, or immigrant origins.

Studies on reducing inequality should aim to build, test, or increase understanding of programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in youth outcomes. We welcome descriptive studies that clarify mechanisms for reducing inequality or elucidate how or why a specific program, policy, or practice operates to reduce inequality. We also welcome intervention studies that examine attempts to reduce inequality. In addition, we seek studies that improve the measurement of inequality in ways that can enhance the work of researchers, practitioners, or policymakers. The common thread across all of this work, however, is a distinct and explicit focus on reducing inequality—one that goes beyond describing the causes or consequences of unequal outcomes and, instead, identifies leverage points for reducing inequality.

Improving the Use of Research Evidence

In this focus area, we support research to identify, build, and test strategies to ensure that research evidence is used in ways that benefit youth. We are particularly interested in research on improving the use of research evidence by state and local decision makers, mid-level managers, and intermediaries.

Studies on improving the use of research evidence should identify, build, and test strategies to ensure that research evidence is used in ways that benefit youth. We welcome ideas from social scientists across a range of disciplines, fields, and methodologies that can advance their own disciplines and fields and reveal insights about ways to improve the production and use of research evidence. Measures also are needed to capture changes in the nature and degree of research use. We welcome investigations about research use in various systems, including justice, child welfare, mental health, and education. Research teams have drawn on existing conceptual and empirical work from political science, communication science, knowledge mobilization, implementation science, organizational psychology and other areas related to the use of research for improvement, impact, and change in research, policy, and practice institutions. Critical perspectives that inform studies’ research questions, methods, and interpretation of findings are also welcome. Broadening the theoretical perspectives used to study ways to improving the usefulness, use, and impact of research evidence may create a new frontier of important research.

Selection Criteria

Selection is based on applicants’ potential to become influential researchers, as well as their plans to expand their expertise in new and significant ways. The application should make a cohesive argument for how the applicant will expand his or her expertise. The research plan should evolve in conjunction with the development of new expertise, and the mentoring plan should describe how the proposed mentors will support applicants in acquiring that expertise.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

Slots: Universities/Institutions are limited to four applications per cycle.

One application per cycle per investigator.

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Friday, May 19th, 2023, 5pm PT

LOI: July 28, 2023

External Deadline: September 29, 2023

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Award Amount: When creating the LOI, the budget should be reasonable based on the aims of the project. When reviewing applications, we determine if the budget is reasonable based on multiple factors. This includes the number of researchers working on the grant (and their training), the type of model being used for experiments (mouse, drosophila, c. elegans, etc.), supplies required for experiments, genetic sequencing or other outsourced services, test setup development, etc. With the large variances in typical budgets between the different scientific disciplines, we do not provide a boundary condition. However, a detailed budget justification will be required and scrutinized during the proposal phase if the LOI is invited to proceed to step 2 of the application process.

Who May Serve as PI: Not specified on website.

Link to Award: http://www.mathersfoundation.org/

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure (RII) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/. Use the template provided here:

RII-Limited-Submission-Application-Template.

Materials to submit include:

• (1) Two-Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 2-page limit will be excluded from review. You must use the template linked above.
• (2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Note: The portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#, Gender, and Ethnicity. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.

Purpose

The G. Harold and Leila Y. Mathers Charitable Foundation was organized as a Texas non-profit corporation and obtained a ruling from the Internal Revenue Service granting it tax-exempt status as a section 501(c)(3) organization. The Foundation commenced its grant-making activities in Fall, 1982. Since its inception, The Mathers Foundation has granted in excess of $350M.

For many years the Foundation has enjoyed special recognition in the research community in supporting “basic” scientific research, realizing that true transformative breakthroughs usually occur after a thorough understanding of the fundamental mechanisms underlying natural phenomena. More recently, and with the advent of newer investigative methodologies, technology, and tools, the Foundation now embraces innovative translational research proposals.

• The Foundation primarily supports basic science, ideally with potential translational applications. 
• Immunology, microbiome, genomics, structural biology, cellular physiology, neuroscience, etc., are some noteworthy examples of current research support.  
• Covid-19 related research projects (aims or sub-aims) will not be considered for support. 
• Medical imaging technology related projects and/or electrical engineering technology development projects will not be considered for support. 
• Plant Biology Research, Oceanography, Space Exploration. and Global Warming related research will not be considered for support. 
• As technology continues to advance, it is apparent that investigations in the area of basic science and translational research may become more and more reliant on collaborative, interdisciplinary projects. It is important to note that any interdisciplinary project proposals may require additional information regarding collaborator(s)’ achievements and relevant expertise. 
• Feedback for declined LOI Requests will not be provided; LOIs or Formal Proposals that have been declined should not be resubmitted at a later date for consideration. 
• Renewal applications for the same or related research will not be accorded priority consideration. It is strongly advised that any re-application for grant renewal consider a new direction based on prior research or emphasize some new potential translational aspects and not merely an extension of previously funded research. 
• Requests for funding previously federally supported research and/or applications pending federal approval will not be accorded priority consideration. 
• Requests for support of clinical trials or drug discovery will not be approved. The Foundation will not support projects which we consider pre-clinical drug development. 
• Grant Agreements must be signed by an authorized signatory for the University/Institution and countersigned by the Primary Investigator. 

Budgetary Requirements

• The budget justification should provide detailed costs of investigators’ salaries, laboratory supplies, etc., and will be highly scrutinized. 
• Grant duration must be three years. 
• Our expectation is that an investigation will be completed within the requested duration of the grant (up to 3 years). A no-cost extension may be requested if the investigation has not been completed and there are still funds available. If at the end of the grant term, the aims of the project have not been met, an explanation should be provided to the Foundation. (The primary investigator is urged to consider a proposed modification of the project’s original aims to prevent such a situation from occurring.) 
• Preliminary Budgets are required during the LOI phase. A detailed budget justification is not required until the proposal phase.  
• The Foundation’s grant award is not intended to be utilized for purchasing capital equipment (“bricks-and-mortar”) for the lab and is intended only to support the actual investigation. The Foundation assumes and expects that capital equipment must be provided by the research institution or university. 
• Indirect Costs for the proposed project cannot exceed 10%. 

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

Slots: 1

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Friday, March 24th, 2023, 5pm PT

LOI: N/A

External Deadline: June 15, 2023, 5pm PT

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: Institutional 2024 Beckman Scholars Awards will be made to support approximately 14 universities and colleges, for an anticipated total of 84 undergraduate students over the three-year period. The Foundation plans to notify awardees in late December 2023 and formally announce awards the following January.

An invited university/college will be eligible for one institutional Beckman Scholar Award, which must be used over a three-year period. In 2022, the Foundation updated the Beckman Scholars Program so that each institutional Beckman Scholar Award will fund a total of six Beckman Scholars (with funding for student and mentor stipends, travel funds, and research supplies) extending over two summers and one academic year. The number of awards allocated to each awardee institution is the same regardless of the institution’s Carnegie Classification. Awardee institutions will name two Scholars in each year of the three-year institutional award term.

Anticipated Award Amount: 

Each Beckman Scholar will pursue an independent research project, under the auspices of an approved mentor. The amount of funding for the 2024 Beckman Scholars Program is $26,000; $21,000 specifically for the Scholar and $5,000 for the Scholar’s Mentor.

Link to Award: https://www.beckman-foundation.org/programs/beckman-scholars/

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure (RII) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/. Use the template provided here:

RII-Limited-Submission-Application-Template.

Materials to submit include:

• (1) Two-Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 2-page limit will be excluded from review. You must use the template linked above.
• (2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Note: The portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#, Gender, and Ethnicity. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.

Purpose

The purpose of the Beckman Scholars Program is to help stimulate, encourage, and support research activities by exceptionally talented, full-time undergraduate students who are pursuing their studies at accredited four-year colleges and universities located in the United States of America. These research activities shall be centered in either chemistry, biochemistry, the biological and medical sciences, or some interdisciplinary combination of these subjects. Candidates for the Beckman Scholars Award must be full-time students throughout the duration of the award.

The research activities performed by Beckman Scholars shall be conducted under the guidance of a full-time, approved faculty member at the college or university receiving an award. Research activities must be performed part-time (ten hours per week) during one academic year, and full-time over two summers (ten 40-hour weeks each summer) immediately before and after the academic year research experience.

Students will be named as Beckman Scholars in the spring of their freshman through junior years at their university or college. Once selected to be a Beckman Scholar, a student will retain the award for 15 months, as long as the student continues to excel academically, and the student’s research work shows satisfactory progress. Beckman Scholar funds provided to any one student may not exceed two summers and one academic year. Beckman Scholar summer funds may extend through the summer following graduation.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.