Greetings,

We are excited to share this limited submission opportunity from St. Baldrick's Childhood Cancer Research Foundation. The St. Baldrick's Foundation is committed to supporting the most promising research to find cures for childhood cancers and give survivors long and healthy lives. Harvard may put forward one nomination for this funding opportunity (see Limited Submission Details below for an exception to this rule). More information about the award and the internal selection process 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 Current Opportunities web page. As a reminder, our Research Development team is available to provide proposal development support to FAS ladder faculty.

St. Baldrick's Childhood Cancer Research Foundation: Research Grant

Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: September 20, 2026 at 11:59 PM ET
OSP Deadline, if selected: Not applicable at the Letter of Intent (LOI) stage
Sponsor Deadline, if selected: October 16, 2026 at 5:00 PM ET
Award Amount: Up to $100,000/year for two years
No institutional overhead or indirect funding is provided under the terms of the grant. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss this with your grants administrator before preparing an application.

Program Overview

Since making its first grants as an independent charity in 2005, the St. Baldrick’s Foundation has invested more than $380 million in childhood cancer research grants worldwide. Research Grants are for specific two-year research projects with direct applicability and relevance to pediatric cancer, which are hypothesis driven and may be laboratory, clinical, or epidemiological in nature. For the 2027 cycle, St. Baldrick’s has added a LOI review process for Research Grants. Harvard's nominee will submit an LOI, which St. Baldrick’s will evaluate for mission alignment and scientific merit. The Foundation will invite selected applicants to submit a full proposal.

Priority Areas

Current funding priorities are divided into four categories:
- New discovery research
- Translational research and early phase clinical trials
- Phase III clinical trials & infrastructure support of participating institutions
- Education of new pediatric oncology researchers
In addition to research to understand the biology of childhood cancers and discover leads to more effective treatments, topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Adolescents & young adults
- Survivorship, outcomes, and quality of life
- Supportive care
- Epidemiology and pediatric cancer predispositions
- Precision medicine
- Alternative & complementary therapies

Eligibility Criteria

Research Grant applicants should hold a Ph.D., M.D., or D.O. degree in a field of research specialty by the date the award becomes effective (July 1, 2027).
Applicants need not be American citizens; however, they must work at an academic, medical, or research institution within the United States.
St. Baldrick’s funds may not be used for human embryonic stem cell research.
Co-Investigators/Co-Principal Investigators are allowed on Research Grants. The LOI/application is required to be submitted under one lead Principal Investigator.

Harvard Pre-Proposal Materials

PI name, title, primary appointment, and CV (NIH Biosketch format)
Co-PI(s) name, title, appointment, as applicable
Proposal title
Research project proposal focus area
Research focus keyword(s), three (3) to five (5)
Rationale for the proposed research project (300 words, max.)
Abstract/summary, prepared for a general/lay audience (1 page, 11 pt. font in Times New Roman)

Limited Submission Details

This is a limited submission opportunity and Harvard may only submit one application; schools located on either campus of Harvard University are viewed as a single institution (though Harvard affiliated hospitals and institutions are viewed as separate). However, due to high interest from donors and low numbers of past applications, one additional LOI/application will be accepted only if it focuses on one of the areas listed below. This allowance applies to the overall cycle—not to each funding category individually (e.g., Research Grant, International Scholar Award, Survivorship & Supportive Care Research Grant):

Rhabdomyosarcoma
Brain tumors –especially atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumor (AT/RT), diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG)/diffuse midline glioma (DMG), and glioblastoma (GBM)
Burkitt lymphoma – all types, especially sporadic
Rhabdoid tumors - Extrarenal

The Office of the Vice Provost for Research will conduct an internal competition to select Harvard’s nominee. To be considered for a Harvard nomination, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal by 11:59 PM on September 20, 2026, via the link above.

Additional Information and Resources

Interested applicants are encouraged to review the full Information and Guidelines for Research Grant Awards, the FAQs, and an article which discusses the review process. Applicants may also search for recent funding recipients in St. Baldrick's Foundation's grantee database.

For the 2027 cycle, St. Baldrick’s has added a LOI review process for Research Grants. Harvard's nominee will submit an LOI, which St. Baldrick’s will evaluate for mission alignment and scientific merit. The Foundation will invite selected applicants to submit a full proposal. LOI decisions will be announced by December 15, 2026, and those selected to advance will be invited to submit a full proposal due March 5, 2027. Award decisions will be announced by June 26, 2027 for a July 1, 2027 award start date.

Questions from FAS or SEAS faculty about this opportunity may be directed to FAS Research Development.

Requests for support related to the application portal may be directed to the Office of the Vice Provost for Research.

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.

Engineering and Technology

Life Sciences

Neuroscience

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.