Greetings,

 

We are excited to share this funding opportunity from the John Templeton Foundation. The Foundation offers grants in support of research and public engagement in a variety of areas ranging from black holes and evolution to creativity, forgiveness, and free will. More information about the award can be found in the synopsis and links below. For a full list of currently open opportunities that have been announced through our office, please visit our new Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.

 

John Templeton Foundation Grants

  • OSP Deadline: July 10, 2026 at 9:00 AM ET
    Departments or areas may require additional time for proposal review and submission. Please discuss a timeline with your departmental or FORA grants administrator.
  • Sponsor Deadline for Online Funding Inquiry (OFI): July 15, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
  • Award Amount: Commensurate with project; project period is up to three years (in rare instances up to five years)
    The Foundation allows projects to include an overhead/indirect cost component that is no more than fifteen percent (15%) of the total direct expenses. The overhead/indirect cost should be included in the total amount that applicants request. 
 

Program Overview

 

The John Templeton Foundation supports interdisciplinary research and catalyzes conversations that inspire awe and wonder. The Foundation prioritizes funding for initial projects in its areas of interest lasting up to three years and projects that include substantial funding from other sources. It seeks to support bold ideas from contrarian thinkers in the form of field-leading research and high impact public engagement programs.

 

2026 Intelligence Venture and Funding Areas

  • Starting in 2026, the Foundation's Intelligence Venture will award over $60 million in grants focused on questions surrounding how we understand the nature, purpose, and future of intelligence across their six funding areas (listed below). 
    • Grants will be distributed over three years to philosophers and ethicists, biologists and neuroscientists, physicists and computer scientists and more, to explore these questions in a multidisciplinary and multidimensional manner.
    • Grantees accepted into the Intelligence Venture will have opportunities to connect with peer scientists and scholars across an array of fields to generate new insights and advance our understanding of what it means to be intelligent.
    • For field-specific guidance, please consult the relevant funding area pages.
  • Character Virtue Development seeks to better understand and elevate the cultivation of character, with a focus on moral, performance, civic, and intellectual virtues, such as humility, gratitude, curiosity, diligence, and honesty. In 2026, the Foundation seeks projects that align with:
    • Intelligence
    • Character and Free Societies
    • Formative Experiences
  • Individual Freedom & Free Markets supports education, research, and outreach projects to promote individual freedom, free markets, free competition, and entrepreneurship grounded in the ideas of classical liberal political economy. In 2026, the Foundation is particularly interested in projects that fall into at least one of the following three categories:
    • Educational Innovations for Freedom
    • Research at the Vanguard of Freedom
    • Freedom Catalysts
  • Life Sciences supports experimental and theoretical research on the biological mechanisms that produce life in its diverse forms. This year, Life Sciences supports funding in the areas of:
    • Emergent Properties
    • Genetics and Genomics
    • Projects focused on Intelligence should be within one of these two Life Sciences sub-areas. 
  • Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) supports research seeking to shed light on the foundational concepts of the quantum world, cosmology, and complexity, as well as the interplay between the natural sciences and broader human experience. In 2026, the Foundation is interested in projects proposing innovative experimental or observational projects aimed either to discover:
    • Physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM)
    • Extraterrestrial Technosignatures
  • Public Engagement funds content projects that include video, audio, public events, and print media. In addition, this program seeks proposals that support the next generation of thought leaders and generate durable courses and programming at leading universities. For the 2026 funding cycle, content project proposals (film, video, audio, print, events) should align with the Foundation’s Intelligence Venture topic.
  • Religion, Science, and Society funding area seeks proposals that address fundamental questions about human existence, how people can flourish and find meaning, and how societies envision the future. For the 2026 funding cycle, the Foundation invites projects in one of the following categories:
    • Intelligence
    • Meaning Making
    • Imagined Futures
d

Eligibility Criteria

  • Applicants may submit more than one funding inquiry to the Foundation. 
  • Past grantees who were awarded grants or donations less than $234,800, have no restrictions on requests for renewal or follow-up funding. 
    • For prior Foundation grants with start dates after January 1, 2022, this threshold is $260,000.
  • If a project was supported by a prior Foundation grant or donation in excess of $234,800, then the project leader(s) may request renewal or follow-up funding for that project only if:
    • At least seven years elapse between the closing date of the prior grant and the start date of the proposed new grant. 
    • The request is submitted at least six months before the end date of the prior grant, and the request includes a plan to cover more than 50% of the total project costs through other sources. 
 

OFI Application Materials

  • The OFI is a brief form requesting basic information about proposed projects, including:
    • A project title
    • Request amount
    • Relevant dates
    • Why the project is important
    • A brief description of the activities
    • Information on the people and organizations that would be involved
 

OFI Review Process

  • The Foundation’s program staff reviews each submitted OFI to determine if proposed projects represent a realistic, strategic, and potentially successful opportunity to advance the philanthropic vision of the Foundation.
  • Each OFI is considered relative to the quality of similar proposed projects.
 

Additional Information and Resources

 

The Foundation's application process has two stages. Grant consideration begins with an initial Online Funding Inquiry (OFI) submitted through the Templeton Portal and, if invited, a detailed Full Proposal will be due December 4, 2026. Funding decisions will be communicated by July 9, 2027. For more information, please refer to Templeton Grant FAQs. The Foundation's grant database is also available online.

 

Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to research_development@fas.harvard.edu.

MAILING LISTS

Sign up to join the mailing list for FAS Funding Focus, a resource series tailored to help FAS faculty and staff navigate the ever-evolving landscape of grants and funding. Previous editions of FAS Funding Focus (FFF) are accessible in the FFF archive. To receive additional announcements from FORA, including the monthly On Your RADAR (Research Administration Developments & Announcements Rundown) newsletter and invitations to the FORA Forum, a monthly meeting for Harvard research administrators, please sign up for the FORA listserv here.
 

RESOURCES

Research Development maintains a Sample Proposal Library of successful proposals from recent award recipients that are available to FAS and SEAS faculty by request; please email Research Development to request to view a proposal. For more information on Research Development's resources—including lists of internal funding programs, early career funding programs, and sabbatical fellowships—please visit the Funding Opportunities web page. 
 

SEARCH FOR OPPORTUNITIES WITH PIVOT

All Harvard affiliates can search for opportunities and set up alerts using Pivot, a searchable database of federal and private funding opportunities. Information on Pivot, including a one-page user guide, and other funding opportunity databases available to the Harvard community can be found on the Funding Databases web page.
 

PIVOT CURATED SEARCHES

Curated funding opportunity lists are funding search topics of broad interest. The following curated lists can be further refined in Pivot based on your funding needs. To view the results you must be on a Harvard network or logged in to your Pivot account. Information on setting up a Pivot account can be found in our one-page user guide. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quantum Science and Engineering 

 

 

Additional curated lists are available on the Funding Databases web page. We continue to add to and refine these lists based on feedback. Please feel free to reach out to us at research_development@fas.harvard.edu with any suggestions you may have.
 Research Development | FAS Office of Research Administration | research.fas.harvard.edu
Your Research, Our Mission
View this email in your browser
You are receiving this email because of your relationship with the FAS Office of Research Administration. Please reconfirm your interest in receiving emails from us. If you do not wish to receive any more emails, you can unsubscribe here.

1414 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 02138

|