Early Career Funding Opportunities

• ACGT Young Investigator Awards - Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy
  The Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy (ACGT) exclusively funds cancer cell and gene therapy research by supporting both discovery and translational research. ACGT awards grants of $250,000-$500,000 over 2-3 years to young investigators.
• AFAR Research Grants - American Federation for Aging Research
  AFAR Research Grants are intended to assist in the development of the careers of junior investigators committed to pursuing careers in the field of aging research. AFAR anticipates making approximately 10 grants of to $100,000 each.
• AFSP Young Investigator Innovation Grants - American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)
  AFSP Research Grants are designed to support research on suicide from a variety of disciplines including psychiatry, medicine, psychology, genetics, epidemiology, neurobiology, sociology, nursing, health services administration, social work, and many others. The Young Investigator Grant is intended to assist new researchers to obtain the advice, guidance, and supervision of an established mentor in a selected area of suicide research.
• Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) - Air Force Office of Scientific Research
  The Air Force YIP aims to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators and increase opportunities for the young investigator to recognize the Air Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. Most YIP awards are funded up to $150,000 per year for three years.
• ALSF Young Investigator Grants - Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation
  Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation (ALSF) believes that attracting and retaining the best and brightest early career scientists is critical to the future of childhood cancer research. Young Investigator Grants offer up to $50,000 per year for three years for startup funds.
• Alzheimer's Association New Investigator Research Grants - Alzheimer's Association
  The Alzheimer's Association International Research Grant Program funds investigations that advance our understanding of Alzheimer's disease, help identify new treatment strategies, provide information to improve care for people with dementia, and further our knowledge of brain health and disease prevention.
• American Cancer Society Research Scholar Grants - American Cancer Society
  The ACS Research Scholar Grants support investigator-initiated projects across the cancer research continuum. Awards are for up to four years and for up to $165,000 a year.
• American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund Doctoral New Investigator Grants (DNI) - American Chemical Society
  The ACS aims to support fundamental research in the petroleum field and develop the next generation of engineers and scientists through support of advanced scientific education. The Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) grants provide start-up funding for scientists and engineers who are within the first three years of their first academic appointment. The award amount is $100,000 over two years.
• American Council of Learned Societies Fellowships - American Council of Learned Societies
  The ACLS Fellowship program includes a joint fellowship with the New York Public Library, as well as named awards made possible by generous donations to ACLS. ACLS invites applicants from all disciplines of the humanities and related social sciences.
• American Diabetes Association Junior Faculty Development Award - American Diabetes Association
  The ADA Junior Faculty Development Award supports early investigators as they establish independence as diabetes researchers. Awards are made up to $138,000 per year for up to four years.
• American Heart Association National Scientist Development Grant Program - American Heart Association
  The Scientist Development Grant Program is designed to support highly promising beginning scientists in cardiovascular and stroke research between their initial research training and their complete independence. The award amount is $77,000 per year for three years.
• American Mathematical Association Centennial Fellowships - American Mathematical Association
  The AMS Centennial Research Fellowship Program makes awards annually to outstanding mathematicians to help further their careers in research. Last year's stipend was $93,000 and the amount of this cycle has not yet been determined.
• APA Young Investigator Awards - Academic Pediatric Association
  The APA Young Investigator Award provides up to $10,000 for research that addresses health or healthcare of children or adolescents, such as health services research, medical education, adolescent medicine, public health, epidemiology, emergency medicine, child maltreatment, hospitalist medicine, developmental/behavioral pediatrics, or other general pediatric clinical research domains.
• ASH Foundation New Investigators Research Grant - American Speech-Language-Hearing Foundation
  The New Investigators Research Grant is designed to help further new investigators' research activities by funding preliminary studies that could launch larger-scale research studies. The foundation will award up to 10 research grants of $10,000 each.
• Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award - March of Dimes
  Name for the first March of Dimes chairman and President, the Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award (BOC) is designed to support young scientists embarking on their independent research careers. The mission of the March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality. The award is $150,000 for 2 years, including 10 percent indirect costs to sponsoring institutions.
• Bayer Hemophilia Early Career Investigator Award - Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program
  The Bayer Hemophilia Awards Program supports basic and clinical research and education in hemophilia.
• Beckman Young Investigator Program - Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation
  The Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Program provides research support to young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences, particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments, and materials that will open up new avenues of research in science.
• Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award - Chan Zuckerberg Initiative
  The CZA Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Awards are five-year investigator grants for early career academic investigators, with an emphasis on those who are new to the field of neurodegeneration. The grant provides $500,000 total costs per year for five years.
• Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists - New York Academy of Sciences
  The Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists celebrate the past accomplishments and future potential of young faculty members working in the following disciplines: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences & Engineering, and Chemistry. Annually, one Blavatnik Laureate in each disciplinary category will receive $250,000 in unrestricted funds.
• Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Awards - Burroughs Wellcome Fund
  The Burroughs Wellcome Fund supports biomedical scientists at the beginning of their careers in areas of science that are poised for significant advancement but are currently undervalued and underfunded.
• Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award - Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation*
  The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program supports the research and teaching careers of talented faculty in the chemical sciences. The Program awards an unrestricted research grant of $75,000.
• Children's Tumor Foundation Young Investigator Awards - Children's Tumor Foundation
  The CTF's YIA provides two-year funding to young scientists early in their careers, bringing them into the neurofibromatosis (NF) field and helping to establish them as independent investigators. Awards are for two years and amounts are commensurate with experience.
• Damon Runyon innovation Award - Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation
  The Damon Runyon-Rachleff Innovation Award is designed to provide support for the next generation of exceptionally creative thinkers with "high-risk/high-reward" ideas that have the potential to significantly impact our understanding of and/or approaches to the prevention, diagnosis or treatment of cancer. Grants are for $150,000 per year for up to four years.
• David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship Program - Society for Conservation Biology
  The David H. Smith Conservation Research Fellowship is intended to create opportunities for leading conservation scientists to strengthen their skills through two years of applied post-doctoral research. Each fellow will receive an annual salary of $55,000 plus benefits.
• DDCF Clinical Scientist Development Award - Doris Duke Foundation
  The Doris Duke Clinical Scientist Development Award provides grants to junior physician-scientists to facilitate their transition to independent clinical research careers.
• FFAR New Innovator in Food and Agricultural Research - Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (FFAR)*
  The FFAR New Innovator in Food and Agricultural Research Award is designed to provide the early investment needed to launch new faculty members into successful scientific careers in food and agriculture. Each award will provide up to $100,000 per year for up to three years. A one-to-one cash match from nonfederal sources is required.
• Foundation Fighting Blindness Career Development Award - Foundation Fighting Blindness
  The FFB Career Development Awards are intended for junior investigators to pursue vigorous research programs to derive the research to find the therapies and cures for retinal degenerative diseases (RDDs). At least two five-year awards are available each with a total of $375,000.
• Gary S. Gilkeson Career Development Award - Lupus Foundation of America
  The Gilkeson Career Development Award is intended for rheumatology, nephrology and dermatology fellows interested in lupus research. The foundation gives two awards annually of up to $70,000.
• Genentech Age-related Macular Degeneration Research Fellowships - Association for Research in Vision and Opthalmology (ARVO)
  The Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology offers two Genentech Age-related macular Degeneration grants: 1) basic research in the understanding of AMD, and 2) translational research focusing on therapeutics. Each fellowship award is $40,000.
• Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program - Greenwall Foundation
  The Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics supports research that goes beyond current work in bioethics to help resolve pressing ethical issues in clinical care, biomedical research, and public policy. Each year, approximately three scholars are selected to receive 50% salary support for three years.
• Harry Weaver Neuroscience Scholar Awards - National Multiple Sclerosis Society
  As part of its overarching goals of stopping MS progression, restoring function, and ending MS forever, the National MS Society offers a limited number of Harry Weaver Awards to highly qualified candidates who have concluded their research training and begun academic careers as independent investigators in an area related to multiple sclerosis.
• HFSP Young Investigators' Research Grants - Human Frontier Science Program
  HFSP Young Investigators' Research Grants are provided to teams of scientists from different countries who wish to combine their expertise in innovative approaches to questions that could not be answered by individual laboratories. Awards are dependent on team size and successful teams will receive up to $450,000 per year for three years.
• ILSI Future Leader Awards - International Life Sciences Institute
  The ILSI North America Future Leader Award is given to promising nutrition and food scientists and allows new investigators the opportunity to add to an existing project or to conduct exploratory research that might not receive funding from other sources or add to an existing project.
• Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship - Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research
  The Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund supports research into the causes and treatment of cancer. This is a three-year fellowship with a basic stipend of $52,00 for the first year, $52,500 for the second year, and $53,000 the third year.
• JDRF Career Development Award - Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
  The JDRF Career Development Award is intended to attract qualified and promising scientists early in their faculty careers and to give them the opportunity to establish themselves in areas that reflect the JDRF research emphasis areas. JDRF awards a maximum of $150,000 per year for up to five years.
• Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship - Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
  The Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship in Entrepreneurship Research is intended to support the research activities of eligible junior faculty members who are actively pursuing research in the field of entrepreneurship. All fellowships are for $35,000 and are typically delivered over three years.
• Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Awards in the Neurosciences - Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund
  The Klingenstein-Simons Fellowship Awards in the Neurosciences supports young investigators engaged in basic or clinical research that may lead to a better understanding of neurological and psychiatric disorders. The award is for $225,000 over three years.
• Leukemia Research Foundation New Investigator Research Grants - Leukemia Research Foundation
  The Leukemia Research Foundation exclusively funds New Investigators allowing innovative scientists to act on their ideas, and try new procedures and experiments that will hopefully lead to significant breakthroughs. Grants are made for $100,000 over a one-year period.
• Liver Scholar Award - American Liver Foundation
  The Liver Scholar Award is intended to develop the potential of outstanding, early career scientists and encourage research in liver physiology and disease. This award provides $225,000 over three years.
• LUNGevity Career Development Award - LUNGevity
  The LUNGevity Career Development Award is intended to support future research leaders who will keep the field of lung cancer research vibrant with new ideas. The maximum award amount is $300,000 over three years.
• Lymphoma Research Foundation Clinical Investigator Career Development Award - Lymphoma Research Foundation of America
  The LRF Clinical Investigator Career Development Award supports clinical researchers within five years of the completion of their postdoctoral training.
• Macy Faculty Scholar - Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation
  The Macy Faculty Scholars Program is designed to identify and nurture the careers of promising educational innovators in medicine and nursing. Each year, the foundation gives five awards of up to $100,000 (plus fringe) per year for two years. 
• Marilyn Hilton Award for Pilot Innovators - Hilton Foundation
  The Marilyn Hilton Award aims to stimulate innovation and potentially paradigm-shifting research in progressive MS, which may otherwise go unfunded in times of declining funding for research.
• McKnight Scholar Awards - McKnight Foundation
  The McKnight Scholar Awards encourage neuroscientists in the early stages of their careers to focus on disorders of learning and memory. Each year, six scholars are selected to receive $75,000 per year for 3 years.
• NARSAD Young Investigator Award - National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression
  The Brain & Behavioral Research Foundation is committed to alleviating the suffering caused by mental illness by awarding grants that will lead to advances and breakthroughs in scientific research. The NARSAD Young Investigator Grant provides support for the most promising young scientists conducting neurobiological research with two-year awards up to $70,000.
• National Ataxia Foundation Young Investigator Award - National Ataxia Foundation
  The National Ataxia Foundation (NAF) is committed to funding the best science relevant to hereditary and sporadic types of ataxia in both basic and translational research. The NAF Young Investigator Award is intended to encourage young investigators to pursue a career in the field of any form of Ataxia research with one-year grants of $35,000.
• National Kidney Foundation Young Investigator Grant Program - National Kidney Foundation
  The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) is dedicated to preventing kidney and urinary tract diseases, improving the health and well-being of individuals and families affected by kidney disease and increasing the availability of all organs for transplantation. The NKF Young Investigator Grant Program supports clinical research studies addressing important issues for patients with kidney disease with one-year grants of up to $35,000.
  
• NSF CAREER Awards - National Science Foundation (NSF)
  The NSF CAREER: The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program supports early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in their departments or organizations.
• PCF Young Investigator Awards - Prostate Cancer Foundation, Human Capital Initiative
  The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is interested in investing in human capital to fast forward solutions for prostate cancer with the ultimate goal of ending death and suffering from metastatic prostate cancer. The PCF Young Investigator Award provides $75,000 per year for three years.
• PhRMA Foundation Research Starter Grants - Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Foundation
  The PhRMA Foundation supports the research and early career endeavors of scientists in drug discovery and development. The Research Starter Grants program provides a research grant of $100,000 for one year.
• Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE)- National Science Foundation (NSF)
  PECASE nominees are selected from among the most meritorious recent NSF CAREER awardees based on two important criteria: (1) innovative research at the frontiers of science and technology that is relevant to the mission of NSF and (2) community service demonstrated through scientific leadership, education, or community outreach.
• Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) - National Science Foundation (NSF)
  The PAESMEM Awards recognize those who have made significant contributions to mentoring and thereby support the future productivity of the U.S. science, technology, engineering and mathematics, (STEM) workforce. 
• Scleroderma Foundation New Investigator Grant - Scleroderma Foundation
  The Scleroderma Foundation New Investigator Grant is intended for young faculty who wish to pursue a career in research related to scleroderma. Applicants may request up to $50,000 per year for up to three years.
• Scoliosis Research Society New Investigator Grant - Scoliosis Research Society
  SRS New Investigator Grants are intended to stimulate young members into a career of investigation in spinal deformity. Up to $10,000 may be requested.
• Searle Scholars - Kinship Foundation*
  The Searle Scholars program supports research of outstanding individuals who have recently begun their appointment at the assistant professor level and are in their first tenure-track position. The program funds research in medicine, chemistry, and the biological sciences.
  
• SFARI Bridge to Independence Award - Simons Foundation Autism Research Initiative (SFARI)
  Bridge to Independence Awards are intended to invest in the next generation of top autism investigators by identifying talented early-career scientists interested in autism research. Recipients are awarded $150,000 per year for three years to be used for an autism-relevant project.
• Sloan Research Fellows - Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
  Sloan Research Fellowships are two-year fellowships awarded yearly to 126 early-career scientists and scholars in recognition of their distinguished performance and unique potential to make substantial contributions to their field. The Sloan Foundation accepts applicants in the following fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics.
• Mitzi & William Blahd, MD, Pilot Research Grant - Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging
  The Pilot Research Grant is intended to help a basic or clinical scientist in the early stages of their career conduct research that may lead to further funding. The award amount is $25,000.
  
• Society for Neuroscience Young Investigator Award - Society for Neuroscience
  The SFN Young Investigator Award recognizes the outstanding achievements and contributions by a young neuroscientist who has demonstrated scholarly independence. Recipients are awarded $15,000 and participation in the SFN annual meeting.
• Sontag Distinguished Scientist Award- Sontag Foundation
  The Sontag Distinguished Scientist Award (DSA) seeks to provide career and research support to early-career scientists who demonstrate outstanding promise for making scientific and medical breakthroughs in the field of brain cancer research. The award provides $600,000 in funding over a four-year period.
• Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program - National Academy of Education
  The Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship Program supports up to to 30 early career scholars working in critical areas of education research. The Fellowship stipend is $70,000.
• Susan G. Komen Career Catalyst Research Grants (CCR) - Susan G. Komen Foundation
  CCR Grants provide up to $450,000 over three years and support hypothesis-driven research projects that will lead to a reduction in breast cancer deaths by 2026.
• Thrasher Early Career Awards - Thrasher Research Fund
  The Thrasher Research Fund supports young investigators in pediatric research and aims to encourage the development of medical research in child health. The maximum budget for each award is $25,000.
• Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science- Vilcek Foundation
  The Vilcek Foundation raises awareness of immigrant contributions in America and fosters appreciation of the arts and sciences. The foundation awards three prizes of $50,000 annually to young foreign-born biomedical scientists.
• Walter A. Rosenblith New Investigator Award - Health Effects Institute
  The Health Effects Institute (HEI) provides high-quality, impartial, and relevant science on the health effects of air pollution. This award supports junior investigators interested in the health effects of air pollution with 3 years of funding for projects with a funding cap of $450,000.
• Whitehall Grants-in-Aid - Whitehall Foundation
  The Whitehall Grants-in-Aid program is intended for researchers at the assistant professor level pursuing scholarly research in the life sciences. Grants are made for one year and will not exceed $30,000.
• William T. Grant Scholars Program - William T. Grant Foundation*
  The William T. Grant Scholars Program funds five-year research and mentoring plans that significantly expand junior researchers' expertise in new disciplines, methods, and content areas. Each year, four to six Scholars are selected to receive up to $350,000 over five years.

* These opportunities have an institutional limit. An internal limited submission competition will be held by ORD in the Limited Submission Portal.