Funding Opportunities
The Corporate and Foundations Relations Office is able to work with faculty applying for corporate and foundation opportunities below. Please contact them by email or by phone at 919.962.2867. For all applications, please be sure to work with your Department of Pediatrics division grants administrator. Headlines are linked for more information.
Angelman Syndrome Foundation Research Grants
The Angelman Syndrome Foundation (ASF) is accepting proposals to fund pilot projects to test new ideas about pathogenesis and therapeutics of Angelman syndrome, translational research and clinical research studies. Applications are due August 15. The ASF Scientific Advisory Committee identified the following areas of unmet need in AS research. Priority will be given to the following topics:
- Projects studying or correcting the heterozygous effect of non-UBE3A genes in deletion.
- Projects studying the potential results of increasing UBE3A after therapies or for some subtypes of AS.
- Projects studying delivery of therapies and potential for improvement.
- Symptomatic therapies that impact the daily life of people with Angelman syndrome and their families.
For more information, please visit the Angelman Syndrome Foundation page. Applications are due August 15, 2025.
Children’s Research Institute Research Grant Initiative
As part of the mission of the Children’s Research Institute (CRI) to coordinate and support pediatric research, we are thrilled to support 3 research funding opportunities: 1) Carolina for the Kids (CFTK) Research Grant Awards; 2) UNC Children’s Development Early Career Investigator Grants; and 3) IQVIA Pediatric Clinical Scholars Award. Please look for information on next year’s cycle in fall 2024.
The Commonwealth Fund’s Advancing Health Equity program, established in 2021, aims to advance equity in U.S. health care. Its goal is to eliminate unequal treatment, experience, and outcomes in health and health care for people of color by reducing systemic racism in health care policy and practice through three focus areas: promoting antiracism in health care delivery systems, promoting antiracism in health care policy, and changing the mindset of health care leaders and professionals. This is an open RFA with no deadline.
Human Tissues and Organs for Research Resource: Pilot Awards
The Human Tissues and Organs for Research Resource (HTORR) U42 program is now offering a new Pilot Award Program. This Pilot Award Program is intended to facilitate the generation of preliminary data necessary for an investigator to obtain subsequent funding, and will support individuals that meet at least one of the following high priority areas:
- Early-stage investigators that are within 10 years of a terminal degree or completion of clinical residency.
- Established investigators that are transitioning to use human biospecimens.
The 2-year awards provided through our Pilot Award Program will include up to ~10 biological samples per awarded investigator, covering all costs associated with obtaining the biospecimens, including tissue preservation reagents and shipping costs. Beyond the service period and experimental analysis phase, the awardee will also receive supplementary support to develop grant applications to the NIH Institute that supported their award, and only applications that fall into the fields covered by these institutes will be reviewed. The institutes currently included are the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), the National Eye Institute (NEI), the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), and the Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP).
The fall cycle opens June 1, 2025 and is due October 1, 2025. For more information, please visit https://ndriresource.org/pilot-award-program/ or reach out to grants@ndriresource.org.
The new application deadlines for NCBiotech’s Grant Programs have been published. Updated guidelines and materials will be available online before each program’s first deadline.
- Biotechnology Event Sponsorships and Meeting Grants: NCBiotech’s event and meeting grants support North Carolina-based events and meetings that bring information and networking opportunities on diverse topics to the life sciences community statewide. Proposal deadlines are 8/27/2025, 11/19/2025, and 2/25/2026.
- Flash Grants: The Flash Grant program aims to identify and energize creative ideas that exhibit early indications of commercial potential. Like a flash of inspiration, Flash Grants infuse a quick jolt of funding at a critical early point when a small, targeted influx of funds can be crucial to shaping innovative research ideas into high potential life sciences technologies. Deadlines are 9/17/2025, 12/3/2025, and 3/25/2026.
- Innovation Impact Grants: The Innovation Impact Grant (IIG) program supports the purchase of shared-use research equipment for core facilities at academic or nonprofit institutions that foster innovation within North Carolina’s life sciences ecosystem. Applications are due 10/1/2025.
- Translational Research Grants: The Translational Research Grant (TRG) program funds projects that explore commercial applications or initiate the early commercial development of university-held life sciences inventions. The technology must have the potential to solve a real-world problem as a commercial product in the life sciences sector. Due dates are 8/6/2025 and 1/28/2026.
NC TraCS Pilot Funding Program
The North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (NCTraCS) provides a variety of pilot funding opportunities to facilitate the transfer of research findings to clinical practice in order to improve the health of the people of North Carolina. Multiple grant mechanisms are available.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: Pioneering Ideas—Exploring the Future to Build a Culture of Health
Pioneering Ideas: Exploring the Future to Build a Culture of Health seeks proposals that are primed to influence health equity in the future. We are interested in ideas that address any of these four areas of focus: Future of Evidence; Future of Social Interaction; Future of Food; Future of Work. Additionally, we welcome ideas that might fall outside of these four focus areas, but which offer unique approaches to advancing health equity and our progress toward a Culture of Health. Applications are due October 15, 2025 at 3PM ET.
Thrasher Research Fund – Early Career Awards
The Thrasher Research Fund is accepting concept papers to support young investigators in pediatric research. The program’s aim is to encourage the development of medical research in child health by awarding small grants to new researchers. The grant cycle is an ongoing process throughout the year.
UNC Office of Research Development: Idea Seed Grant Program
The program provides pilot funding between $5,000 – $20,000 and/or pre-proposal support for UNC scholars and researchers to approach novel ideas addressing important problems or roadblocks in a current line of inquiry. This unique program provides “right place, right kind” resources by coupling seed funding and person time to support competitive teams of UNC researchers. In addition to funding for preliminary data collection, travel, and team-building activities, awardees will receive expert guidance in planning and preparing grant applications for extramural funding opportunities. This competition is now accepting applications anytime and will receive initial review upon receipt. It is planned that awards will be made promptly after internal review by OVCR leadership and offered on a deliverables oriented schedule. Up-to date instructions will always be kept on the ORD website.
UNC School of Medicine: Boost Funding
UNC School of Medicine (SOM) faculty are extremely successful in their efforts to obtain funding for their research, even though the funding climate has become increasingly competitive. The SOM recognizes that it often takes multiple submissions and additional experimental data to get a new project funded, particularly as a new investigator, or with a more complex, multi-PI project. In support of these efforts, the SOM Office of Research is inviting applications from faculty for Boost awards, which are designed to boost the chances of funding for an NIH grant (or similar) that has been reviewed favorably but needs additional revisions and preliminary data in order to be funded on resubmission. For more information, please visit the OoR Funding site.
UNC School of Medicine: Bridge Funding
The School of Medicine is opening the first round of applications for Bridge Funding for this fiscal year. Bridge Funding provides continued support for successful research projects that suffer a lapse in funding. Investigators eligible for funding in this round should have had a competing renewal application for an R01 or equivalent grant reviewed in the most recent review cycle. Bridge funding is a critical resource for SOM faculty, and a high proportion of bridge funding recipients have been successful in renewing their NIH support. Thus, a competitive bridge funding application must demonstrate a high likelihood of receiving NIH funding upon resubmission. Please visit the OoR Funding site for more information.
UNC School of Medicine: Parachute Fund
The School of Medicine is committed to supporting SOM labs that have been impacted by recent delays in the NIH grant pipeline. To assist with this temporary need, the SOM will administer the Parachute Fund (PF). The fund is targeted for R01/R35, U, and P competitive renewals which received highly fundable scores in study section (within institute paylines) but have not yet received a Notice of Award (NOA) due to the current delay in council meetings. In keeping with the principle of putting people first, the PF program will help support lab personnel as research labs await an NOA. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis to OoR_submissions@med.unc.edu. For questions, please contact Janelle Cross. For more information, please see the announcement attached.
UNC School of Medicine: Sunset Fund
The SOM is committed to supporting SOM labs that have been impacted by recent terminations of existing grants in the recent months following the executive orders and subsequent changes at the NIH and other federal agencies. To assist with this critical need and support the people in our research labs, the SOM will administer the Sunset Fund (SF). The SF is targeted to terminated grants (not Stop Work orders). We will provide up to $50,000 for previously funded R01/R35/R00, U, and P grants (or similar) that were terminated unexpectedly in mid-cycle. We will provide up to $30,000 for R21 grants and independent K01/K08/K22/K23 (or similar) grants. For more information, please see the Sunset Fund RFA.