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Physical Sciences, Mathematics & Engineering

American Chemical Society — Local Section Innovative Project Grant Program

  • Up to $3,500
  • Annual deadlines:
    • June 30
    • January 15
  • For local sections to conceive of and implement innovative projects to strengthen the functioning of the local section

Tech Briefs Media Group — Create the Future Design Contest

  • $20,000
  • Deadline: July 1, 2019
  • For engineering innovation in these categories:
    • Aerospace & Defense
    • Automotive/Transportation
    • Consumer Products
    • Electronics/Sensors/IoT
    • Machinery/Automation/Robotics
    • Medical
    • Sustainable Technologies

Open Technology Fund — Internet Freedom Fund

  • Up to $900,000; typically $50,000–200,000
  • Deadline: July 1, 2019
  • For open and accessible technology-centric projects that promote human rights, internet freedom, open societies, and help advance inclusive and safe access to global communications networks for at-risk users including journalists, human rights defenders, civil society activists, and every-day people living within repressive environments who wish to speak freely online    

Open Technology Fund — Core Infrastructure

  • $300,000
  • Deadline: July 1, 2019
  • Supports the “building block” technologies, infrastructures, and communities relied upon by digital security and circumvention tools strengthening internet freedom, digital security, and the overall health of the internet

National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine — Building Capacity for Science Communication

  • Up to $50,000
  • Deadline: July 1, 2019
  • For the formation and development of collaborative researcher–practitioner partnerships to advance the science of science communication through the development, use, and evaluation of evidenced-based approaches to the practice of communicating with people about science. Support may be given to projects at various stages of project planning or execution.

Instagram — Well-being and Safety Research

  • Up to $50,000
  • Deadline: July 3, 2019
  • For proposals to help Instagram better understand user experiences that foster or harm the well-being and safety of our communities and societies. This includes but is not limited to: understanding problematic issues facing our communities, developing better policies, assessing possible interventions to protect our communities, and identifying the mechanisms (e.g., social support, social comparison) through which Instagram usage directly impacts well-being.

National Geographic Society — Early Career Grants

  • Up to $10,000; usually $5,000
  • Deadlines:
    • July 10, 2019
    • October 9, 2019
    • January 9, 2019
  • For early-career investigators. Projects must align with one of these areas of interest:
    • The Human Journey
    • Wildlife and Wild Places
    • Our Changing Planet
  • Eligibility:
    • no more than five years professional experience
    • requires no advanced degree or previous project lead experience

National Geographic Society — Requests for Proposals

  • Up to $70,000 (usually under $30,000), over up to two years
  • Deadlines:
    • July 10, 2019
    • October 9, 2019
    • January 9, 2019
  • For projects in these areas:
    • Documenting Human Migrations
    • Uncovering Human Origins in Asia and Africa
    • Species Recovery
    • Big Cats Conservation
    • Making the Case for Nature
    • Reducing Marine Plastic Pollution
    • Participatory Science
    • Conservation Technologies
    • AI for Earth

Open Technology Fund — Digital Integrity Fellowship Program

  • Deadline: July 15, 2019
  • Fixed monthly stipends to individuals capable of addressing short-term and long-term threats to freedom of expression online. Fellows provide organizations and communities most affected by internet freedom violations (like journalists, human rights defenders, NGOs, activists, bloggers, and others) support for their digital security needs. Simultaneously, Fellows will educate the broader internet freedom field about the threats and vulnerabilities experienced, to ensure that emerging and existing technologies best meet the needs of at-risk communities.

American Physical Society  — The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Fundamental Physics Innovation Awards

  • Up to $75,000
  • Deadlines:
    • July 15
    • October 15
    • January 15
    • April 15
  • To stimulate ideas on innovative ways in which emerging technologies can be used to address pressing problems in fundamental physics. Three programs:
    • Lectureship Awards ($2,000)
    • Visitor Awards ($5,000–$10,000)
    • Convening Awards ($25,000–$75,000)

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation — 100&Change

  • $100 million
  • Deadlines:
  • July 16, 2019 for registration
  • August 6, 2019 for applications
  • Competition for a single grant of $100 million to a project that promises real and measurable progress in solving a critical problem of our time. Proposals from any field or problem area considered. Competitive proposals will address a significant problem and provide a solution that is impactful, evidence-based, feasible, and durable. See previous grantees. The foundation aims to run this competition every three years.
  • A sample application and applicant webinars are available now at the link above, but the actual application and/or guidelines may change when the application portal opens on April 30, 2019.
  • Please contact Corporate and Foundation Relations if you are interested in applying.

Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology — Global Research Outreach Program

  • Deadline: June 24, 2019
  • For proposals on these research themes:
    • Machine Intelligence
      • Deep reinforcement learning for graph optimization
      • Rejection: Out-of-distribution detection
    • Homomorphic Encryption
      • Cryptanalysis, Comparison and Search, Authentication of computation results
    • Physical and Mental Health
      • Healthcare Sensors, Algorithms, and Systems
      • Mental Health Assessment using Mobile Devices
    • Autonomous Materials Development
      • Inverse design methodology for Periodic system
    • Metaphotonics
    • Functional Oxide
      • Oxide Thin Films for Memory and Logic Applications
    • Next-Gen Computing
      • Power Grid Design and Analysis in Advanced Technology Nodes
      • Synergy between Graphics and Compute on Mobile GPUs
      • Machine Learning Techniques for Power/Thermal Modeling and Control Algorithms for High-end CPU
    • Air Pollution Remediation
      • Decomposition of compounds to cause particulate matters based on microbial conversion
      • New tech for Washable, Regenerable Filter, and Indoor CO₂ Elimination
      • Simulation methodology of particulate matter and air quality
    • Semiconductor Materials
      • CMOS Channel materials for low thermal budget process
    • Ab Initio Reliability Simulation
      • Defect engineering in semiconductor technology
    • Spintronics Materials & Devices
    • New Metal Halide Perovskite Devices
    • Intellectual-property terms in the research agreement will need to be reviewed and possibly negotiated by Technology Transfer Office and Office of Sponsored Projects

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation — Sofja Kovalevskaja Award

  • ~$1,850,000 over five years (up to six awards will be made)
  • Deadline: July 31, 2019
  • For top-rank junior researchers whose work has already been internationally recognized as outstanding. To spend five years building up a working group and working on a high-profile, innovative research project of their own choice at a research institution of their own choice in Germany. All disciplines. Applications from women particularly encouraged.
  • Eligibility: doctorate or equivalent degree completed “with distinction” after July 31, 2013

Materials Research Society — MRS Fellows

  • Deadline: August 1, 2019
  • The MRS Fellows program recognizes outstanding contributions to the field, including research, leadership, and service that have advanced the mission of the materials community world-wide.  It is intended to be a lifetime recognition of distinction in the field, rather than an award for a specific achievement.

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine — National Research Council Research Associateship Programs

  • $42,000–$80,000 for recent Ph.Ds. (proportionally higher for Senior Associates); $30,000 for graduate entry level (higher with additional experience)
  • Annual deadlines:
    • August 1
    • November 1
    • May 1
  • Scientific and technological research. Graduate, postdoctoral (<5 years), and senior-level (>5 years) residential research opportunities at sponsoring federal laboratories and affiliated institutions.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative — Essential Open Source Software for Science

  • Up to $250,000 for one year, with renewal and no-cost-extension opportunities. Includes up to 15 percent for indirects.
  • Deadline: August 1, 2019
  • For open-source software projects that are essential to biomedical research, have already demonstrated impact, and can show potential for continued improvement. The goal of the program is to support software maintenance, growth, development, and community engagement for these critical tools. Applications for two broad categories of open-source projects will be considered in scope:
    • Domain-specific software for analyzing, visualizing, and otherwise working with the specific data types that arise in biomedical science (e.g., genomic sequences, microscopy images, molecular structures). Software will be considered out of scope if it primarily serves domains outside biomedical science (e.g., physics, astronomy, earth sciences).
    • Foundational tools and infrastructure that enable a wide variety of downstream software across several domains of science and computational research (e.g., numerical computation, data structures, workflows, reproducibility). While foundational tools will be considered in scope for this program, they must have demonstrated impact on some area(s) of biomedical research.
    • Access application information via SurveyMonkey Apply.

Materials Research Society — Awards

  • $5,000 (multiple awards will be made)
  • Annual deadlines:
    • August 1
    • April 1
  • To acknowledge outstanding contributors to the progress of materials research: whose work has already had a major impact in the field; who have defined the frontiers of the field; who are outstanding exponents of their science; and young researchers whose work already leads to great expectations for future leadership
  • Awards on this deadline:
    • David Turnbull Lectureship: to recognize the career contribution of a scientist to fundamental understanding of the science of materials through experimental and/or theoretical research
    • The Kavli Foundation Early Career Lectureship in Materials Science: for significant novel contributions to materials science by a young researcher in early stages of his/her career
    • Materials Theory Award: for exceptional advances made by materials theory to the fundamental understanding of the structure and behavior of materials
    • MRS Medal: for an exceptional achievement in materials research in the past ten years
    • MRS Nelson "Buck" Robinson Science and Technology Award for Renewable Energy
    • MRS Postdoctoral Awards: for postdoctoral scholars who are showing exceptional promise
    • Von Hippel Award: for brilliance and originality of intellect, combined with vision that transcends the boundaries of conventional scientific disciplines

Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation — Beckman Young Investigators Program

  • ~$600,000 over four years
  • Deadline: August 9, 2019 for letters of inquiry
  • For early-career faculty in chemistry and life sciences who have not received a major award from another funder. Particular focus on the invention of methods, instruments and materials that will open up new avenues of research. Projects should represent departures from current research directions rather than extensions or expansions of existing programs. Proposals that cut across traditional boundaries of scientific disciplines are encouraged.
  • Eligibility: tenure-track or equivalent independent researcher, appointed after August 6, 2016 and before August 6, 2019. U.S. citizen or permanent resident. See external funding limits.

John Templeton Foundation — Grants

  • Up to $234,000 for small grants program, more for large grants program
  • Deadline: August 16, 2019 for online funding inquiry
  • To support research on “the basic forces, concepts, and realities governing the universe and humankind’s place in the universe.” Interest in the intersection of scientific notions (e.g., complexity, emergence, evolution, infinity, and time) and moral and spiritual concepts (e.g., altruism, creativity, free will, generosity, gratitude, intellect, love, prayer, and purpose). There are six grant programs:
    • Science and the Big Questions
    • Character Virtue Development
    • Individual Freedom and Free Markets
    • Exceptional Cognitive Talent and Genius (in mathematics and science)
    • Genetics
    • Voluntary Family Planning

Rising Tide Foundation — Social/Education Programs

  • Deadlines:
    • August 27, 2019
  • To support and cultivate the next generation of public intellectuals to inform and achieve social progress. For projects that will empower disadvantaged individuals to improve their situation to achieve sustained social and economic independence and live a life of dignity.

Engineering Information Foundation — Grant Programs

  • Up to $25,000
  • Annual deadlines:
    • August 28
    • February 28
  • For developmental projects, instructional projects, and training programs in engineering education and research in these fields:
    • the availability and use of published information
    • women in engineering
    • information access in developing countries

Transportation Research Board — Highway IDEA Program

  • Up to $150,000
  • Annual deadlines:
    • September 1
    • March 1
  • For proposals with potential to advance the construction, safety, maintenance, and management of highway systems

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation — Sloan Research Fellowships         

  • $70,000
  • Deadline: September 16, 2019
  • For early-career scientists and scholars in these or related fields:
    • chemistry
    • computational and evolutionary molecular biology
    • computer science
    • economics
    • mathematics
    • neuroscience
    • ocean sciences
    • physics
  • Eligibility: must be tenure-track, though untenured, as of September 16, 2019.

the cogito foundation — Science/humanities collaborations; public understanding of science

  • Typically around $50,000; rarely over $100,000
  • Annual deadlines:
    • October 1
    • May 1
  • Programs:
    • research grants and guest-researcher fellowships for cross-disciplinary collaboration between the sciences and the humanities
    • congresses, meetings and seminars to support prominent speakers
    • events and activities that increase public understanding of scientific thinking and the scientific method, including workshops and publications

Whitehall Foundation — Research Grants, Grants-in-Aid
Limit of one application every 12 months per investigator

  • Up to $225,000 over three years for Research Grants
  • Up to $30,000 for Grants-in-Aid
  • Annual deadlines:
    • October 1
    • January 15
    • April 15
  • For dynamic areas of basic biological research that are not heavily supported by federal agencies or specialized foundations. Investigators with substantial existing or potential support ineligible. Research grants are for established scientists of all ages. Grants-in-Aid are for assistant professors who experience difficulty in competing for research funds because they have not yet become firmly established. Grants-in-Aid can also be made to senior scientists.

Environmental Research & Education Foundation — Grants

  • Up to $500,000; $160,000 average
  • Annual deadlines for pre-proposals:
    • January 6
    • June 1
  • Topics must relate to sustainable solid-waste management practices and pertain to the following topic areas:
    • Waste minimization
    • Recycling
    • Waste conversion to energy, biofuels, chemicals or other useful products, including waste-to-energy, anaerobic digestion, composting, other thermal or biological conversion technologies
    • Strategies to promote diversion to higher and better uses (e.g. organics diversion, market analysis, optimized material management, logistics, etc.)
    • Landfilling
  • Desirable aspects of the above topics, in addition to or as part of hypothesis-driven applied research, also include:
    • Economic or cost/benefit analyses
    • Feasibility studies for untested technologies or management strategies
    • Life-cycle analysis or inventory
    • Analyses of policies that relate to the above

Internet Society — Data Collection on Consolidation

  • Up to $30,000
  • For data collection related to the issue of consolidation of Internet services. The goal is to assemble a repository of unique and novel data to be made openly available for interested researchers. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
    • Economic and technical dependencies, including those that might cause a favored status that constrain the Internet’s natural evolution
    • Impact of consolidation on “digital divides” and network developments in developing economies
    • The extent to which consolidation is a result of particular characteristics of the service involved
    • New Internet traffic patterns and network practices as a result of consolidation
    • The impact of consolidation on the development of new protocols, standards, or practices
    • Technical drivers for large-scale operations and consolidation
    • Regulatory consideration, whether from the perspective of consumer protection, competition, or administrative law
    • Impact of consolidation on innovation and/or cybersecurity
    • Consideration of how emerging technologies (e.g. 5G) may impact consolidation and fiber access networks

Protocol Labs — Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (CRDTs)

Cisco Research Center — Insider Threat

  • For innovative approaches to both predicting as well as detecting situations in which the theft of sensitive data, threats to the integrity of data, or the attempt to compromise internal resources is taking place by insiders

Cisco Research Center — Linguistics

  • For research proposals in the areas of using natural language approach to define network policies. Proposals should define an adaptive, context-aware linguistic model (declarative and generative) that maps human intent to fine-grained logic to program network functions such as resource allocation and usage and data access control. The proposed model/architecture should include a natural language interface coupled with an abstract policy representation language that can be "understood" by all of the layers/components of the network system as well as the associated OSS/BSS layers.

Cisco Research Center — Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence (ML/AI) for Networking and Beyond

  • For proposals that investigate how machine learning and artificial intelligence (ML/AI) can benefit various aspects of networking. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
    • Novel applications based on network operations and telemetry data
    • Modelling and representing networking policies and user intents
    • Autonomous configurations and policies for self-healing networks
    • Enabling self-learning networks that can dynamically adapt to new traffic patterns
    • Enabling networks to detect and prevent security threats (e.g., DDoS)
    • Anomaly detection based on network telemetry data
    • Leveraging network telemetry data for application performance management and automated IT customer support
    • Automatic process discovery and optimization
    • Event recognition for customer support case and escalation forecasting
    • Behavior modeling and recognition of IoT (Internet-of-Things) devices
    • Fusion of multiple signals (e.g., cameras, WiFi signals, motion sensors) in IoT networks
    • User behavior analytics (e.g., localization, behavior pattern) in wireless networks
    • Virtual assistant for smart offices
    • Real-time sentiment analysis during video calls from facial expressions, voice and conversation context
    • Summarize and highlight key takeaways from conference calls
    • Privacy protection schemes that enable machine learning of sensitive data
    • Privacy protection schemes that find and eliminate personally identifiable information to reduce privacy risks in data sets.
    • Machine learning of geographically distributed and/or privacy protected data
    • Advances in edge-based and heterogeneous computing platforms for ML/AI
    • Applications and algorithms specific to verticals or domains (e.g., Healthcare)

Microsoft Research — Project Catapult Academic Program

  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis
  • Free access to field-programmable gate arrays at the Texas Advanced Computing Center at the University of Texas at Austin. For innovative applications and high-demand research applications, such as machine learning and deep learning algorithms.

Comcast — Innovation Fund

  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis
  • Broad topics of interest (see web site for more specifics):
    • Networking / Distribution
    • Measurement / Data Analysis
    • Input / User Interface
    • Open Source Development
    • Security / Privacy
    • New Services

Unilever — Open Innovation

  • No funding for submissions in the initial stages. However, Unilever may pursue contracts for product supply, license, joint venture, technology acquisition, and patent acquisition.
  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis
  • For technical challenges in consumer-products manufacturing and packaging. Current areas of interest:
    • Ingredients or technology for prevention of oil oxidation
    • Packaging improvements in: the connection between consumer and product (how-to-guides, recipes, reviews, gamification); potential health benefits (freshness indicator, cooking aid); or the safety of the product (authentication, tamper evidence, anti-theft)
    • More for less: new technologies and materials that can be incorporated into products to deliver the same or better functionality while using radically less material
    • Superior functionality: improved attraction to consumers through novel materials, shapes and decorations; improved performance of the product and its container, including seals, easy open and dispensing technology and protection against damaging conditions (heat, light etc.)
    • New and novel freezing and cooling technologies
    • Process for superficial surface modification of non-uniform flat shapes: indentations, intrusions, perforations, scoring, bruising, or microporations
    • Process for shape transformation of tea leaves: e.g., needles, circles, balls, spirals
  • Caution: do not disclose any information that jeopardizes your rights to file patents

Toyota USA Foundation — STEM grants

  • minimum of $50,000
  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis
  • For improving the teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics

Simons Foundation — Targeted Grants in Mathematical and Physical Sciences

  • No fixed amount
  • Deadline: Rolling
  • Description: The program is intended to support high-risk projects of exceptional promise and scientific importance on a case-by-case basis.
  • Please contact CFR (Kate Norton) if interested in applying.

Cisco Research Center — Research and Academic Programs

  • Company solicits research proposals relevant to its core business of improving the Internet, as well as related technologies that leverage the power of the network to change the world. Recent requests for proposals include:
    • Secure and Private Internet of Things (IoT)
    • 5G Vision: Enhanced Wireless with Combined Access plus A'cess Agnostic Core Legal Implications for IoT, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence Systems
    • Software Defined Networks / P4
    • Social Science: Career/Life Paths of Women in Engineering, Computer Science, and Data Science/Applied Mathematics
    • Security Assurance for Agile, Continuous Deployment and DevOps
    • Robust and Transparent Cryptography

Comcast — Research Grants

  • Up to $150,000
  • Applications are accepted on a rolling basis
  • Broad areas of interest include:
    • Networking and distribution
    • Measurement and data analysis
    • Input and user interface
    • Open-source development
    • Security and privacy
    • New services
    • See web site for additional details

Chemical Heritage Foundation — Library Travel Grants

  • $750 per week for up to two weeks
  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis
  • For travel and accommodation to use the primary research materials in the Foundation's Othmer Library of Chemical History

American Physical Society — International Research Travel Award Program

  • Up to $2,000
  • For international research collaborations between physicists in developed and developing countries

Mozilla — Mozilla Open Source Support Awards (MOSS)

  • $15,000–250,000
  • Applications accepted on a rolling basis
  • For open-source projects that contribute to Mozilla’s work and to the health of the Internet. Three tracks:
    • Foundational Technology. Open-source projects that Mozilla relies on, either as an embedded part of its products or as part of its everyday work.
    • Global Mission Partners. Open source projects that significantly advance Mozilla’s mission.
    • Secure Open Source Fund. Security audits for widely used, open-source software projects as well as the remedial work needed to rectify the problems found.