Funding Opportunities

Identifying funders and opportunities that are appropriate to your interests is critical to securing research funding. This page contains resources you can use to do just that!

Community of Science Pivot Database: An aggregator site for funding opportunities of all kinds, Pivot is arguably the most comprehensive database available to academic researchers in search of research support. It provides detailed information about upcoming RFPs and active links to funding organizations' webpages. For each opportunity, Pivot also provides a list of potential collaborators within your home organization and others.

Foundation Directory Online: The FDO (a service of the Foundation Center) is a "one stop shop" for information about philanthropic funders and opportunities. The link provided here is for the free service, which is accessible to anyone without a subscription. IAS maintains a paid subscription to the FDO, which enables users to access organizations' financial information, staff information, and many more details that can be crucial in identifying potential funders and crafting winning proposals. To conduct a search with the paid FDO subscription, contact Linda Cooper at llg@ias.edu for more information.

For the most part, opportunities in the FDO will also appear in Pivot; however, the FDO provides significantly more information on funders' interests, giving history, and finances than does Pivot.

Grants.gov: Grants.gov is the online clearinghouse for all federal funding opportunities, and facilitates submission of online application materials.

For the most part, opportunities in Grants.gov will also appear in Pivot, but if you know you're interested in seeking federal support, Grants.gov is the most direct way to search.

External Resources for Finding Research Funding

The Open Educational Research Database has compiled a list of 100+ Places to Find Funding for Your Research. While some of the resources they highlight require a paid subscription, other, less well-known resources may be just what you're looking for.

In its "Tools &Tips: How-To" series, Science offers a Where To Search For Funding article that introduces mechanisms for finding funding opportunities for scientific research.

In its "Grant Space" the Foundation Center attempts to answer that all important question "How Do I Find Funding for My Research?" with some helpful narrative and links to internal and external resources.