Listed below are a selection sources of funding opportunities–including CBE & UW sources, foundations, and agencies. Considering a funding opportunity but unsure if it’s the right one for you? This go/no-go evaluation matrix may help. Contact us at be-research@uw.edu with any questions.
* Funding Database Search Support *
The Office of Research is piloting a new service for PIs looking for funding opportunities. The OR staff and student assistant will use keywords and information about your research to conduct searches in the funding databases listed below under the “funding databases” tab. To request funding database search support, complete the form here.
Please provide feedback on this new process to be-research@uw.edu so we can improve!
- The Royalty Research Fund (RRF) is set aside to help those who are new to research with seed money (up to $40,000 and two years of research). Submissions for RRF funding are accepted twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall.
- The Bridge Funding program provides bridge funding to support faculty to span a temporary funding gap in critical research programs. Maximum of $50,000 may be applied for through the Provost; all funding requests must be matched 1:1 by the applicant’s college/school. A total of $500,000 is available for each round of awards.
- The Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics, and Environment (EDGE) Pilot Research Project Program provides initial support for investigators to establish novel lines of research relevant to the missions of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences & the EDGE Center. Successful applicants receive up to $40,000 for one-year projects (2023 application cycle).
- The Global Innovation Fund (GIF) is managed by the Office of Global Affairs (OGA) and seeks to seed initiatives and programs (up to $20,000) that develop cross-college and cross-continent collaborations that enhance the University of Washington’s global reach.
- Urban@UW’s Research Spark Grants program is available to scholars across all three UW campuses to pursue new and emerging research initiatives in critical aspects of contemporary urban societies. Proposals may request up to $20,000.
- The Population Health Initiative’s pilot research grants (up to $50,000 each) are intended to encourage the development of new interdisciplinary collaborations among investigators for projects that address critical challenges to population health.
- The Population Health Innovation Award is a partnership between the Population Health Initiative and CoMotion to fund projects (up to $40,000 each) that both support the vision of PHI and fulfill CoMotion’s criteria of eventually becoming sustainable commercial or social ventures.
- The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute Small Grants Program awards grants of up to $30,000 each to UW researchers for pilot studies and developmental research. Substance abuse research is interpreted broadly to include everything from basic studies of the pharmacology of drugs of abuse to studies of clinical treatment strategies, prevention and social policy issues.
- CoMotion funding programs provide tools, resources, and connections that UW researchers and students need to accelerate the impact of their innovations. CoMotion supports several grants and competitions each year.
- The Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Exploration grants seek to foster early-stage discovery research. Initial grants of $100,000 each are available, with projects that show promise eligible to receive additional funding of up to $1 million. These grants are intended to grow the pipeline of ideas for solving the most challenging global health and development issues.
- The EarthLab Innovation Grants Program seeks to invest in teams of University of Washington researchers, students and non-academic partners developing innovative solutions to pressing environmental challenges.
- The West Coast Poverty Center provides occasional mini-grants to support research collaborations between WCPC scholars and local non-profits on topics related to poverty, social policy, and individual or family financial well-being, broadly construed. These awards of up to $12,000 (plus a stipend for the nonprofit partner agency) are intended to support pilot studies, initial data analyses, and/or the development of applications for larger sources of funding.
- The CSDE seed grants program is supported by their Population Research Infrastructure Program award from NICHD and the College of Arts and Sciences. Proposals must fit within any of CSDE’s five Primary Research Areas: Demographic Measurements and Methods, Environments and Populations, Health of People and Populations, Migrations and Settlements, Wellbeing of Families and Households.
- CSDE Matching Support offers in-kind or monetary support to accompany a submission to other on-campus funding mechanisms. Applicants must be a CSDE affiliate at any UW campus (the project may have any number of additional collaborators who are not UW faculty and/or affiliates).
- The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies’ Research Grants for Faculty provides grants of up to $7,500 for research about labor, broadly conceived. Research may focus on any dimension of labor in the United States or abroad, including but not limited to class relations, the social conditions of work, the labor process, working-class culture or politics, work and gender, work and race/ethnicity, the relationship between labor and the state, unions, or comparative international labor relations.
- The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies’ Washington State Labor Research Grant provides up to $15,000 for policy-oriented research on aspects of labor directly relevant to policy makers in Washington State.
- The Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences Seed Grants Program provides funding ($15,000-25,000) for promising research at the intersection of statistics and the social sciences. The goal is to stimulate scholarly initiative by encouraging faculty to explore new directions in research and scholarship that contributes at the cutting edge to the development of statistical methods for social scientific problems.
- The Simpson Center for the Humanities provides grants for humanities related research.
- UW Office of Research Funding Opportunities database – a database of databases and other sources
- Limited Submission Opportunities – UW’s list of opportunities that only allow a limited, set number of applications to be submitted from the university. Special timelines and/or considerations may apply to these opportunities
- UW Advancement Funding Opportunities database – UW Advancement’s database focuses on corporate and foundation funding
- Grant Forward – a UW subscription, this service searches for funding opportunities across a wide variety of foundation, federal and other funding sources
- Foundation Directory Online – a UW subscription, this service compiles information about programs that offer research grants and other awards
- Grants.gov – offering email alerts of federal funding opportunities
- Proposal Central – funding opportunities from professional societies and foundations
- Procore – funding and collaboration opportunities for construction management
- Department of Architecture and Historic Preservation – a Washington state resource listing topic-specific grant and contract opportunities
This list is not comprehensive. If you know of a funding source that consistently offers RFPs on a cyclical/ongoing basis, please let us know and we’ll add them here!
Associated General Contractors Education and Research Foundation
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
CPWR – The Center for Construction Research and Training
Their mission is to reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement.
Projects about architecture and the designed environment that will contribute to an individual’s creative, intellectual, and professional growth at crucial or potentially transformative stages in their career.
Mid-career individuals in the arts and sciences.
Landscape Architecture Foundation
Proposals that focus on conservation and sustainable development.
Supports research in architecture, urbanism and the humanities.
National Endowment for the Humanities
Various funding opportunities for humanities-related work, including public humanities and public scholarship efforts, collaborative research, etc.
Educational and research initiatives focused on innovative approaches to the integrated and sustainable use of precast concrete design, fabrication, and construction.
Programs and projects that align with the Foundation’s aspiration to achieve a vibrant, equitable, and sustainable world through the power of creative problem solving.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Supports pioneering ideas and innovative solutions to build a Culture of Health in America.
Focuses on promoting cooperation between Denmark and the United States through student intern, exchange and fellowship programs in architecture.
Programs and projects that align with the Foundation’s priority areas of Sustainable Environments, Strong Local Economies, and Thriving Cultures.
Wellcome Trust – Our Planet, Our Health
Research that focuses on human health, particularly solutions that protect, nurture, and sustain the planet.
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Proposals that focus on energy, climate, and conservation issues.
The William T. Grant Foundation funds research that increases our understanding of: (1) the programs, policies, and practices that reduce inequality in youth outcomes, and (2) how policymakers and practitioners acquire, interpret, and use research evidence.