Current Opportunities

ACS-Moore Postdoctoral Bridge Award in Quantum Materials

The American Chemical Society (ACS) and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation have partnered to launch the inaugural ACS-Moore Postdoctoral Bridge Award in Quantum Materials program, which aims to support exceptional postdoctoral researchers in quantum materials who face financial challenges in their current postdoctoral appointment or in securing their next career opportunity.

Cabot Family Charitable Trust: Fall 2026 Grant Cycle

The Trust provides support in the areas of arts and culture, education and youth development, environment and conservation, health and human services, and civic and public benefit, with the goal of improving life for children and families in Boston and contiguous communities. Harvard University is limited to submitting one proposal to the Cabot Family Charitable Trust's Fall 2026 cycle. 

Searle Scholars Program

The Searle Scholars Program supports the independent research of outstanding early career scientists in the biomedical sciences and chemistry. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research has re-opened the internal application for this program.

Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs

The Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP) strive to transform health care for service members and the American public through innovative and impactful research.

Foresight Institute Fellowship

The Foresight Fellowship is a year-long program supporting early-career scientists, engineers, and innovators to supercharge their ability to advance technological progress.

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation: Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative

The Symbiosis in Aquatic Systems Initiative supports research and the development of novel methods that significantly expand knowledge of how symbiotic relationships function, evolve, and shape aquatic ecosystems.

Beckman Young Investigator Program

The Beckman Young Investigator Program provides research support to the most promising junior 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. These applications require two institutional endorsements. Please see below for instructions on requesting these endorsements in the announcemnet. Requests must be received by July 20, 2026. 

Social Science Research Council (SSRC) LEGO Foundation Fellowship

The LEGO Foundation Fellowship supports researchers with a clear line of inquiry related to children’s thriving.

Scaling AI Safety for a Multi-Agent World

This request for proposals from Schmidt Sciences, Google DeepMind, Google.org, the Cooperative AI Foundation, and the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) aims to catalyze foundational technical research on the question of how to ensure safety in a world with millions of interacting AI agents, built and deployed by many different actors. 

NIH Director's New Innovator Award (DP2 Clinical Trial Optional)

The NIH Director's New Innovator Award Program supports Early Stage Investigators of exceptional creativity who propose bold and highly innovative research projects with the potential to produce a major impact on broad, important areas relevant to the mission of NIH.

Coefficient Giving: Global Health and Wellbeing in an Era of Transformative AI

Coefficient Giving's (previously named Open Philanthropy) Global Health and Wellbeing in an Era of Transformative AI program will support research to help ensure that AI progress will achieve its transformational potential to improve health and accelerate science as well as economic growth. 

Schmidt Sciences: Virtual Institute for the Carbon Cycle (VICC) Phase 2 Expressions of Interest (EOI)

The Virtual Institute for the Carbon Cycle (VICC) is requesting Expressions of Interest (EOIs) to support transformational research that dramatically reduces uncertainty in the global carbon cycle by an order of magnitude and provides robust scientific knowledge to guide effective climate policy and solutions. 

Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) Fellowship Program

The CAIS Fellowship program allows scholars and practitioners to spend time at the Center in Bochum, Germany, conducting research on societal impacts of the digital transformation and participating in a vibrant interdisciplinary community. 

NIH Director's Transformative Research Award for Individual and Group Science (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)

The NIH Director's Transformative Research Award Program supports collaborative investigative teams or individual scientists who propose unusually innovative research projects, which, if successful, would have a major impact in a broad area of relevance to the NIH.

NIH Director's Pioneer Award (DP1 Clinical Trial Optional)

The NIH Director's Pioneer Award Program emphasizes the qualities of the investigator and the innovativeness and potential impact of the proposed research.

Schmidt Sciences VESRI Climate Modeling Challenge: Accelerating Development Cycles for Coupled Climate Models Call for Expressions of Intent (EOIs) Phase I 

The Schmidt Sciences Virtual Earth Systems Research Institute (VESRI) Climate Modeling Challenge: Accelerating Development Cycles for Coupled Climate Models funding opportunity focuses on efficient and reproducible coupled model calibration, thereby advancing VESRI's core mission to make climate projections more realistic and useful for decision-making. 

Sloan Research Fellowships

These prestigious awards recognize and reward outstanding early-career faculty who have the potential to revolutionize their fields of study. Each year, no more than three candidates may be nominated from any one department per fellowship field. 

American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Fellowship

ACLS invites research proposals from scholars in all disciplines of the humanities and interpretive social sciences. Fellowships are intended to help scholars devote full-time research and writing.

American Academy in Berlin 2027-2028 Berlin Prize Fellowship

The American Academy in Berlin is an independent, nonprofit institute for advanced study with a primary mission to strengthen the cultural and intellectual ties between the United States and Germany. The Academy welcomes applications from a broad range of disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, law, journalism, and various areas of public policy. 

Wilson Center Research Fellowship

The Center is now inviting applications to its flagship Research Fellowship program for policy-relevant, nonpartisan project proposals that address key challenges confronting the United States and the world. Fellows conduct research and write in their areas of interest, while interacting with policymakers in Washington and other fellows.

National Humanities Center (NHC) Fellowships

NHC Residential Fellowships offer scholars the time, space, and support needed to pursue their work and the opportunity to take part in the Center's vibrant intellectual community. 

Russell Sage Foundation: Sheldon Danziger Pipeline Grants

The Sheldon Danziger Pipeline Grants Competition seeks to support early-career scholars and promote diversity by prioritizing applications from scholars who are underrepresented in the social sciences and/or employed at under-resourced colleges and universities.

Russell Sage Foundation: Core Research Grants

The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) funds social science research that extends the methods, data, and theories of the social sciences as a means of better documenting and understanding the nation’s most pressing social, political, and economic problems. 

• Research priority programs accepting LOIs: Social, Political and Economic Inequality (SPEI); Future of Work (FOW); and Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility (SCD23) 

The Michael J. Fox Foundation and Alzheimer's Association: Bridge Funding for Disrupted Neurodegenerative Research Grant Program (BFDN) Powering the Next Generation of Research 

The Bridge Funding for Disrupted Neurodegenerative Research Grant Program aims to provide funding for early career researchers whose projects focused on Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and other neurodegenerative disorders and age-related causes of dementia have been impacted by a series of changes within the U.S. federal government.

NSF Unlocking Dataset Value for AI-Enabled Scientific Discovery (AI Datasets)

The newly launched Unlocking Dataset Value for AI-Enabled Scientific Discovery (AI Datasets) program will advance scientific community datasets to enable scientific discovery and innovation using artificial intelligence (AI) and other methods.

Wellesley College Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities Fellowship

The Suzy Newhouse Center for the Humanities hosts thee to five external fellows each academic year. Resident fellows devote themselves primarily to their own research, but they also participate actively in the intellectual life of the institution, attending fellows' lunches and sharing their work in progress with one another and with the larger Wellesley community.

Center for Hellenic Studies Grants

Offers fellowships to scholars working on the ancient Greek world in all its varieties, for example, in fields of archaeology, art history, epigraphy, history, literary criticism, philology, philosophy, pedagogical applications, reception, and interdisciplinary studies. Awards are up to $5,000 for students and $9,000 for faculty, and are meant to support curriculum development, travel, internships, and/or allowable research-related expenses. 

Harvard Global Health Institute (HGHI) Visiting Research Scholarship Program

HGHI's Visiting Research Scholarship Program offers Harvard faculty the opportunity to host an international collaborator in global health for a six-week, in-person residency in April 2027 on Harvard's campus.

Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program

The Radcliffe Fellowship program awards 50 Fellowships each year and welcomes proposals from scholars, artists, and public intellectuals proposing innovative work that confronts pressing social and policy issues and engages audiences beyond academia. Proposals relevant to the Institute's multiyear focus area, which for 2024-2029 is academic freedom and connecting across difference, are welcome. 

Impact Labs Public Service Leaves

Public Service Leaves provide funding to enable Harvard faculty to take a leave to work in government or a nonprofit organization.

Manuscript Workshop Grants for Tenure-Track Arts & Humanities Faculty

To support the career development of its tenure-track faculty, the Division of Arts & Humanities makes available to eligible tenure-track faculty members small grants of up to $3,000 to support travel and other expenses associated with bringing experts to Harvard to review and offer guidance on their in-progress manuscripts or artworks.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Grants for Faculty Conferences

The Weatherhead Center provides logistical and organizational support for conferences, as well as financial assistance, to bring scholars and practitioners to Harvard from around the country and the world to participate with Harvard faculty in conferences and workshops designed to advance analytical research.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Research Incubation Fund

The Weatherhead Center has earmarked, annually, three awards of $30,000 to support the development of faculty research proposals that are intended to be submitted to major outside funding agencies or foundations (the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and various private foundations).

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Small & Medium Grants for Faculty Research Projects

Each year the Weatherhead Center awards a limited number of small and medium grants for faculty research projects to conduct research relating to the core interests of the Center.

Salata Institute Seed Grant Program in Climate and Sustainability

The Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability at Harvard University solicits proposals for funding under its Seed Grant Program in Climate and Sustainability. Funding will be available for 1) Early-stage research in climate change and sustainability, 2) New project funding, 3) Interdisciplinary research in climate change and sustainability involving new collaborations, 4) Workshop funding, and 5) Early-stage interdisciplinary research on quantifying health outcomes after solutions or interventions in climate change mitigation.

Dumbarton Oaks Grants and Fellowships

The Dumbarton Oaks grants and fellowships programs award over 150 appointments annually in the expanded fields of Byzantine, Garden and Landscape, and Pre-Columbian Studies. Residential fellowships for an academic year, semester, or summer are awarded in all three areas of study to scholars from around the world.

Lemann Brazil Research Fund

The Lemann Brazil Research Fund aims to to foster collaboration between scholars at Harvard and in Brazil, and to support research projects focused on current issues facing Brazil. While the Fund's application portal will not open until September 15, 2026, its Request for Proposals has been posted to allow faculty members additional time to plan projects with Brazil-based colleagues, and/or to consult with the Harvard David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) Brazil Office. 

Arnold Arboretum Awards

The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University promotes and supports research consistent with its mission to discover and disseminate knowledge of the plant kingdom. To foster both independent and collaborative work, the Arboretum offers fellowships and awards to students, post-doctoral researchers, and professionals of the biological and horticultural sciences.

Tenure-Track Faculty Synergy Semesters and Faculty Research-Semester Leaves in International Affairs

The Center believes that one of the most important forms of support for faculty members is the opportunity for a sustained period of research. Each year the Center considers proposals from Weatherhead Center Faculty Associates for awards that provide salary support for one-semester faculty leaves to conduct research relating to the core interests of the Center.

Center for American Political Studies (CAPS) at Harvard University Faculty Grants

Allows Harvard faculty affiliates of CAPS to apply for discretionary grants up to $5,000 for research on U.S. politics. Priority is given to junior faculty.

Dependent Care Fund

Provides financial assistance to Harvard Ladder Faculty who would like to travel for a professional event that will advance their academic careers, and who also have childcare or adult dependent care obligations.

Division of Social Science Manuscript Workshop Grants for Tenure Track Faculty 

Available to tenure track faculty with primary appointments in the FAS Division of Social Science who are in their 2nd to 6th year of residence. These grants support travel and other expenses associated with bringing experts to Harvard to review and offer guidance on in-progress manuscripts.

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies: Faculty Conference Grant 

Conference grants offer up to $10,000 for faculty members planning to organize a conference on a theme related to China studies, or with significant participation by China scholars. 

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies: Faculty Course Development Grant 

Intended to support faculty working on new undergraduate and graduate courses in or related to China studies. Applications for up to $5,000 will be considered.

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies: Faculty Research Grant

Research grants support applications from Harvard faculty or preceptors for small research grants on Chinese studies of up to $5,000. 

Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies: Faculty Workshop Grant

Workshop grants support Harvard faculty or postdoctoral scholars proposing to organize a book workshop or one-day workshop for discussion of a topic in Chinese studies. The maximum award for a workshop grant is $5,000.

FAS Faculty Aide Program

The Faculty Aide Program (FAP) supports undergraduate students to work closely with a Harvard-affiliated faculty member as a Research Assistant. Faculty members benefit from cost-sharing the wages paid to the student with the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships (URAF).

FAS Professional Development Funds 

Reimbursement for professional development activities undertaken by tenure-track faculty as scholars and teachers.

FAS Tenure-Track Publication Fund

Provides assistant and associate professors in the FAS and SEAS supplemental research funds to assist with costs related to scholarly publications, including but not limited to include research assistance, publication subsidies, copying, word processing, obtaining translations or illustrations, or creating footnotes or indices.

FAS Tenured Publication Fund

Intended to provide aid to tenured professors in the FAS and SEAS with funds to assist with costs related to scholarly publications; for example, expenses associated with indexing, obtaining digital images, securing copyright permissions, and modest subventions requested by not-for-profit publishers.

Harvard China Fund: (Re)engage with China Grant

Funding opportunity of up to $20,000 for faculty members to make short visits to China with the goal of reestablishing academic connections and exploring collaboration with Chinese institutions and partners.

Harvard China Fund: Research Assistant (RA) Grants

Up to $5,000 for Harvard faculty to hire a research assistant. 

Harvard China Fund: Small Grants for other academic activities

Small grants with a maximum of $10,000 to cover costs for academic needs related to China studies, including honoraria for manuscript readers, subscriptions, and other academic activities.

Harvard Data Science Initiative (HDSI): Faculty Special Projects Fund 

This Fund is intended to support one-time data science opportunities for which other funding is not readily available.

Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE) Faculty Grants for Exploratory Research

Supports preliminary explorations of significant environmental issues that show promise for further scholarship.

Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) Mindich Encounters with Authors Conference Series

Opportunity for IQSS faculty affiliates to present a major work still in progress. IQSS pays all conference expenses ($10,000 maximum), arranges invitations, and provides necessary administrative and staff support.

Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) Extraordinary Claims, Extraordinary Evidence

Through uniquely tailored support—including high-level data expertise, infrastructure, and funding—IQSS helps social science tenure-track faculty collect the extraordinary evidence required to challenge leading scientific, political, or cultural assumptions, and move the scientific community’s dominant position the farthest distance.

Mind Brain Behavior (MBB) Community Connect Grants

For graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty interested in organizing an event that includes or benefits part of the Mind Brain Behavior Interfaculty Initiative. This could be for a one-time event like a hosted speaker, gathering, or interdisciplinary workshop, or for recurring events such as journal clubs or faculty interest groups. 

Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) Wetmore Colles Fund

Awards provide funding to MCZ personnel (at least one MCZ faculty-curator, postdoctoral fellow, graduate student, or staff) as senior or lead author to support publication-related activities, in furthering dissemination of research.

Open Gate Grants

Provides funding for activities at Harvard University that benefit LGBTQIA2S+ students, faculty, staff, and alums. Open Gate supports a wide variety of requests, all in furtherance of scholarship, understanding, or celebration, in the fields of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression.

Solar Geoengineering Research Program (SGRP)

Harvard faculty members may apply for grants to develop new directions in their research related to solar geoengineering. These grants aim to support innovative research across a variety of disciplines to evaluate solar geoengineering as a potential means to address climate change.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Canada Program Funding For Harvard Faculty, Departments, and Schools

Support for research on a Canadian topic, or hosting short-term visiting scholars, policy practitioners, and public figures who are engaged in US/Canadian comparative topics.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Discretionary Grants

Faculty Associates may apply for discretionary grants for research relating to the core interests of the Center. This research focuses on international, transnational, global, and comparative national issues and may address contemporary or historical topics, including rigorous policy analysis, as well as the study of specific countries and regions outside the United States.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Dissemination of Publications for Tenure-Track Faculty

Once per year, tenure-track faculty may request that the Center circulate copies of their published or unpublished work to as many as ten scholars in their research area. The Center will defray the cost of the purchase of the publications and pay for the mailings.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Grants for Faculty-Led Seminars

Funding for faculty-led seminars which may benefit the general Harvard community or small groups of scholars to discuss research relating to the core interests of the Center. This research focuses on international, transnational, global, and comparative national issues and may address contemporary or historical topics, including rigorous policy analysis.

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA) Grants for Tenure-Track Faculty Book Manuscript Conferences 

Provides every Faculty Associate who is an assistant or associate professor the opportunity to hold a conference for an in-progress book manuscript. The purpose of these conferences is to gather expert assistance to critique and review texts still in draft.