Featured Opportunities

November 19, 2025

• Emerging restrictions on single-use and plastic packaging will limit access for U.S. specialty crops in global markets. Thus, the Foundation for Food and Agricultural Research (FFAR) is accepting applications, on behalf of Clemson University and the Foundation for Fresh Produce (FFP), for the Packaging Innovation Program to develop packaging and packaging alternatives for specialty crops compliant with emerging packaging regulations in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and other key markets. This program is seeking research applications for novel sustainable packaging or packaging alternatives that can replace single-use packaging and single-use plastic packaging that offer at least some of the same functions economically. The Sustainable Innovation Packaging Program consists of three distinct tracks: Track 1 (Applied R&D) seeks proposals aimed at bringing a solution for specialty crop exports that is still at the laboratory stage but shows high promise to be implemented in pilot-scale manufacturing with minimal further effort; Track 2 (Technology Accelerator) seeks proposals aimed at scaling innovations in sustainable packaging to meet requirements of foreign markets; and Track 3 (Scale-up and Pilot) seeks proposals to run pilot-scale manufacturing projects aimed at commercializing a packaging solution for specialty crop exports.
• The William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies welcomes applications for its four residential research fellowships, which provide junior and senior scholars with an essential element for producing successful books: time. As Pauline Yu, former President of the American Council of Learned Societies, once explained: “Scholars need time to write. In the humanities the expression of the idea is the source of its power, and crafting that expression is essential to the process of research.” Their residential fellowships are for a full academic year (nine months, typically coincidental with SMU’s academic calendar). Competition is open to Ph.D.-holding individuals in any field in the humanities or social sciences conducting research on Texas, the American Southwest (including California in all periods), or the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, as well as comparative projects with at least one foot in the region.
• The Mellon Foundation’s Higher Learning’s Open Call for Concepts supports inquiry into issues of vital social, cultural, and historical import. Projects should engage teams of scholars and/or students, and have visible, enduring impact at the institution. The Mellon Higher Learning team will review all submissions and invite a small number of the most promising concepts to be developed into full proposals for potential grant funding.  The Mellon Foundation invites institutions of higher education to submit applications for research and/or curricular projects focused on either of the following two areas: 1) Unruly Intelligences—addressing generative AI and 2) Normalization and its Discontents.
• The Frontiers: University of Kansas Clinical and Translational Science Institute’s Lauren S. Aaronson (LSA) Frontiers Clinical and Translational Research Pilot Program provides grant funding and other support to grow interdisciplinary, investigator-initiated clinical and translational research across a broad range of scientific disciplines. The objective of this pilot program is to support new and innovative ideas that will lead to externally funded awards. Pilot projects are required to focus on translational science, i.e., understanding a scientific or operational principle underlying a step of the translational process with the goal of developing generalizable principles to accelerate translational research.
• The Simons Foundation’s Mathematics & Physical Sciences (MPS) division invites applications for its Travel Support for Mathematicians program, which is intended to stimulate collaboration in the field primarily through the funding of travel and related expenditures. The goal of the program is to substantially increase collaborative contacts between accomplished, active mathematicians in the United States. Funding will be based on the quality and significance of the applicant’s previous research and the likely impact the travel support will have on future research, both for the applicant and the applicant’s graduate students and/or postdoctoral fellows. Other criteria include publication in high-quality journals, the applicant’s current and recent Ph.D. students, as well as the applicant’s travel goals and general research activity.
• The National Science Foundation’s Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program aims to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance. Many NSF-funded projects result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open-source products, including software, hardware, models, specifications, programming languages, or data platforms that catalyze further innovation. In some cases, an open-source product that shows potential for wide adoption forms the basis for a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem (OSE) that comprises a leadership team; a managing organization with a well-defined governance structure and distributed development model; a cohesive community of external intellectual content developers; and a broad base of users across academia, industry, and/or government. The overarching vision of POSE is that proactive and intentional formation of managing organizations will ensure adoption of open-source products; increased coordination of external intellectual content developer contributions; and a more focused route to technologies with broad societal impact. Toward this end, the POSE program supports the formation of new OSE managing organizations based on an existing open-source product or class of products, whereby each organization is responsible for the creation and management of processes and infrastructure needed for the efficient and secure development and maintenance of an OSE.
• The Department of Health and Human Services, NIH’s Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01) FOA is to support studies that will identify, develop, and/or test strategies for overcoming barriers to the adoption, adaptation, integration, sustainability, scale-up, and spread of evidence-based interventions, practices, programs, tools, treatments, guidelines, and policies (hereafter referred to as evidence-based interventions). Studies that promote the dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions among relevant communities are encouraged. Conversely, there is a benefit in understanding circumstances that create a need to stop or reduce (de-implement) the use of practices that are ineffective, unproven, low-value, or harmful. In addition, studies to advance dissemination and implementation research methods and measures are encouraged. Applications that focus on re-implementation of evidence-based health services that may be disrupted amidst disasters remain relevant.
• The purpose of the American Psychological Association’s APA Congressional Fellowship is to provide psychologists with an invaluable public policy learning experience, to contribute to the more effective use of psychological knowledge in government, and to broaden awareness about the value of psychology-government interaction among psychologists and within the federal government. Fellows spend one year working on the staff of a member of Congress or congressional committee. Activities may involve drafting legislation, conducting oversight work, assisting with congressional hearings and events, and preparing briefs and speeches. Fellows also attend a two-week orientation program on congressional and executive branch operations, which provides guidance for the congressional placement process, and participate in a yearlong seminar series on science and public policy issues. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) administers these professional development activities for the APA fellows and for fellows sponsored by over two dozen other professional societies.
• The William T. Grant Foundation’s Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence program funds research studies that examine strategies to improve the use of research evidence in ways that benefit young people ages 5-25 in the United States. They seek proposals for studies that advance theory and build empirical knowledge on ways to improve the use of research evidence by policymakers, public agency leaders, organizational managers, intermediaries, community organizers, and other decisionmakers that generally shape youth-serving systems in the United States. They fund: 1) Studies that build or test strategies to improve the use of existing research in policy or practice and 2) Studies that test whether and how strategies that improve the use of research evidence in turn improve decision-making and youth outcomes.
• The William T. Grant Foundation’s Research on Reducing Inequality supports research to examine programs, policies, or practices to reduce inequality in the academic, social, behavioral, or economic outcomes of young people ages 5–25 in the United States, along dimensions of race, ethnicity, economic standing, sexual or gender minority status (e.g., LGBTQ+ youth), language minority status, or immigrant origins. Their research interests center on studies that examine ways 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. Recognizing that findings about programs and practices that reduce inequality will have limited societal impact until the structures that create inequality in the first place have been transformed, the Foundation is particularly interested in research to uproot systemic racism and the structural foundations of inequality that limit the life chances of young people.
• The National Science Foundation’s Human Networks and Data Science program (HNDS) supports research that enhances understanding of human behavior by leveraging data and network science research across a broad range of topics. HNDS research will identify ways in which dynamic, distributed, or heterogeneous data can provide novel answers to fundamental questions about individual or group behavior. HNDS is especially interested in proposals that provide data-rich insights about human networks to support improved health, prosperity, and security. HNDS has two tracks: (1) Human Networks and Data Science – Infrastructure (HNDS-I) and (2) Human Networks and Data Science – Core Research (HNDS-R).