Deadline to Request Harvard Institutional Endorsement: September 14, 2021 by 10:00 AM

Sponsor Deadline: September 22, 2021
Award Amount: $70,000 per year for two years (taxable)

The objective of the Banting Postdoctoral Fellowships Program, offered by the Government of Canada, is to attract and retain top-tier postdoctoral talent, to develop Fellows’ leadership potential and to position them for success as research leaders of tomorrow, positively contributing to Canada's economic, social and research-based growth through a research-intensive career. Applications are accepted from all fields in the humanities, social sciences, health research, natural sciences and engineering.

This program is open to Canadian citizens, permanent residents of Canada and non-Canadian citizens. Candidates to be hosted by Harvard must be Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada who have obtained or will obtain their PhD or equivalent from a Canadian university. Applicants must fulfill or have fulfilled all degree requirements for a PhD, PhD-equivalent or health professional degree between September 15, 2018 and September 30, 2022 (inclusively), and before the start date of their award. Applicants who are not Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada may apply to hold a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Canadian institution. Applicants who are Canadian citizens or permanent residents of Canada and who obtained their PhD, PhD-equivalent or health professional degree from a non-Canadian university may also apply to hold a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship at a Canadian institution. The program’s full eligibility criteria can be viewed here.   

There are no limits to the number of applicants that may apply to the Banting Fellowship opportunity, but those who wish to be hosted by Harvard University must include with their application an Institutional Letter of Endorsement signed by the Vice Provost for Research. To request this endorsement letter, candidates must submit their contact information and a copy of their proposed supervisor's statement here no later than 10:00 AM on September 14, 2021. 

The Trust makes grant awards twice a year to nonprofit organizations in the city of Boston and contiguous communities, as well as to organizations in which Cabot family members maintain philanthropic interest. Awards are put to work in the areas of arts and culture, education and youth development, environment and conservation, health and human services, and for civic and public benefit. Within these fields, as appropriate, the trustees prefer programs mainly serving youth and young adults, with a special interest in programs focused on insuring the healthy growth and development of infants and young children, as a foundation for their future success. Applications recommended for review meet the following criteria:

• Reflect Cabot family interests and provide benefits to communities and organizations that have been supported by family philanthropy;
• Extend important services to individuals and groups not served adequately through other programs and institutions;
• Manage change by assessing community needs and developing programs to meet emerging needs;
• Promote productive cooperation and full use of resources by nonprofit organizations and community groups; and
• Test new approaches to problems or adapt solutions that have been successful elsewhere.

• Arts and Culture; 
• Education and Public Affairs; 
• Exchanges and Scholarship; and 
• Global Challenges.

Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: June 2, 2021

FAS/SEAS/OSP Full Proposal Deadline (if nominated): July 8, 2021

Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline (if nominated): July 15, 2021

Award Amount: Up to $180,000 (see below) 

The Public Interest Technology University Network, (PIT-UN), is a partnership of colleges and universities committed to educating students who can better apply technical understanding and practice to questions of individual rights, justice, social welfare, and the public good, particularly for those members of our society least well served historically and today by existing systems and policies. Harvard University is a charter member of the PIT-UN program, and as a single institution, may submit up to three new proposals to this opportunity. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research is facilitating an internal application and review process to select nominees. Proposals are requested for projects addressing any of the following four priority areas:

• Educational Offerings
• Career Pipeline/ Placement
• Faculty & Institution Building
• Strengthening the PIT University Network 

Please note, the PIT-UN full proposal will ask applicants to describe how the institution has demonstrated buy-in for the project to help sustain the project’s impact, and an institutional letter of support will be required. While the internal proposal does not require an institutional letter, the internal proposal will ask applicants to confirm that they have begun conversations with the requisite administrators or leadership regarding the necessary institutional support. Additional information about the PIT-UN Challenge Year 3 opportunity is available in this RFP.

The Medicaid program is facing tremendous opportunities and challenges at a time when its role is so vital. States and the federal government have implemented numerous temporary changes to Medicaid in response to the pandemic—such as making it easier to access, qualify and enroll in state coverage and affordable health care services. With states having the option to make some policies permanent once federal declarations end—it is essential to understand how Medicaid policies being implemented or considered in response to the pandemic may advance racial equity—or, alternatively, reinforce or exacerbate structural racism. Evidence on these issues is needed to inform Medicaid policy in the months and years after the pandemic ends, and to help state and federal Medicaid policymakers identify and eliminate policies that contribute to racial inequities in access, care, and outcomes.

The purpose of this 2021 RTHS call for proposals is to fund research studies that evaluate or predict how enrollees are effected by Medicaid policy changes enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Given the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on communities of color, we are requesting studies that examine the impact of Medicaid policies on communities of color and/or explore how current or proposed policies may alleviate or exacerbate racial inequity and structural racism in the context of Medicaid. The goal of this funding opportunity is to generate rigorous evidence on the effects of recent Medicaid policy changes on enrollees, states, and others, and to inform and advance equitable policies and racial equity in Medicaid.

The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) dedicates itself to strengthening the methods, data, and theoretical core of the social sciences as a means of diagnosing social problems and improving social policies. It also funds researchers and supports programs intended to develop new generations of social scientists. For the July deadline, RSF is accepting letters of inquiry for the following core programs:

• Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration supports innovative investigator-initiated research on the social, economic, and political effects of the changing racial and ethnic composition of the U.S. population, including the transformation of communities and ideas about what it means to be American. 
• Social Political and Economic Inequality supports innovative research on the factors that contribute to social, political and economic inequalities in the U.S., and the extent to which those inequalities affect social, psychological, political, and economic outcomes, including educational access, job opportunities, social mobility, civic participation and representation, and the transmission of advantage and disadvantage within and across generations.
• RSF will also accept LOIs relevant to any of its core programs that address at least one of the following issues:
  • Research on the Covid-19 pandemic and the resulting recession in the U.S.: Specifically, research that assesses the social, political, economic, and psychological causes and consequences of the pandemic, especially its effects on marginalized individuals and groups and on trust in government and other institutions.
  • Research focused on systemic racial inequality and/or the recent mass protests in the U.S.

The Russell Sage Foundation has established a center where Visiting Scholars can pursue their writing and research. Each year, the Russell Sage Foundation invites a number of scholars to its New York headquarters to investigate topics in social and behavioral sciences. The Foundation particularly welcomes groups of scholars who wish to collaborate on a specific project during their residence at Russell Sage. While Visiting Scholars typically work on projects related to the Foundation's current programs, a number of scholars whose research falls outside the Foundation's active programs also participate. These research projects, and other work conducted by the Visiting Scholars, constitute an important part of the Russell Sage Foundation's ongoing effort to analyze the shifting nature of social and economic life in the United States.

Through its grant-making, the foundation seeks to develop solutions to the country’s most important and challenging domestic policy issues. Recognizing that good policymaking relies on the availability of high-quality research, the foundation invests primarily in scholarship that results in the publication of books, journal articles, and policy papers. Funding is typically provided in the form of research grants, fellowships, and other types of targeted project support. With the foundation’s assistance, university and think tank scholars investigate a wide range of issues, including:

• Tax and budget policy
• Cost-benefit analysis of regulatory practices and proposals
• The workings of the legal system
• Environmental policy
• Social welfare reform
• K-12 and higher education policy

• Research Grants on Reducing Inequality - The Foundation seeks studies to build, test, and increase understanding of responses to inequality in youth outcomes.
• Research Grants on Improving the Use of Research Evidence - The Foundation seeks studies about how to improve the use of research evidence in ways that benefit youth.

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: June 9, 2021

Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 16, 2021

Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The program is structured as a 36-month effort with an 18-month Phase 1 (Base) and an 18-month Phase 2 (Option 1)

DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) is soliciting innovative proposals in the following area of interest: building natural language processing technologies that recognize, adapt to, and recommend how to operate within the emotional, social, and cultural norms that differ across societies, languages, and group affinities. The Computational Cultural Understanding (CCU) program will create cross-cultural language understanding technologies to improve a DoD operator’s situational awareness and interactional effectiveness. The CCU program will involve incorporating these technologies into a prototype platform for cross-cultural dialogue assistance, which will create the foundation for a fieldable capability.

CCU will involve three technical areas (TAs): TA1 – Sociocultural Analysis; TA2 – Cross-Cultural Dialogue Assistance; and TA3 – Data Creation for Development and Evaluation. A proposal may address a single TA or a combination of TA1 and TA2. DARPA anticipates multiple awards for Technical Area (TA)1 and TA2, and a single award for TA3.

• Army Research Office (ARO)
• Office of Naval Research (ONR)
• Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)

• Topic 1: Social Network-Transcendent Behavioral Dynamics
• Topic 2: Microelectronic Test Science Exploiting Latent Energy and Electromagnetic Radiation
• Topic 3: Cavity Molecular Polaritons
• Topic 4: Effects of Radiation Damage on Performance of Wide-Bandgap Electronics
• Topic 5: Understanding Neural Systems Integration for Competent Autonomy in Decision and Control
• Topic 6: Nonlinear Optical Material Design with Extreme Interband Nonlinearities
• Topic 7: Synthetic Quantum Matter
• Topic 8: Composability of Synthetic Biological Circuits

• Topic 9: Bio-architected Responsive Materials with 3D Nanoscale Order
• Topic 10: Topological Seeds of Complex Response in Materials
• Topic 11: Connectivity and Transport in Disordered Hyperuniform Networks
• Topic 12: Irregular Metamaterial Networks
• Topic 13: Uncovering the Underlying Neurobiological Mechanisms of Cognitive Fatigue
• Topic 14: Gut-Neuronal Signaling Through Polymeric Mucin via Chemical Probes and Imaging
• Topic 15: ELECTROBIOLOGY: Electronic Control of Biological Communication

• Topic 16: Novel Routes to Majorana Qubits for Topologically-Protected Quantum Information
• Topic 17: Molecular Doping of Organic Electronic Materials
• Topic 18: Learning from Hearing
• Topic 19: Hydrodynamics of Fish Schooling
• Topic 20: Self-learning for Real-world Perception
• Topic 21: Fundamental Non-equilibrium Processes in Weakly Ionized Hypersonic Flows
• Topic 22: Ab Initio Understanding of Detonation Based Combustion in Multiphase Mixtures
• Topic 23: Bioinspired Design of Energy-Self Sufficient Multi-functional Soft Material Systems
• Topic 24: Systems-Level Foundations for Agile, Dynamic, and Ad Hoc Human Autonomy Teams
• Topic 25: Environmental DNA-based Monitoring of the Marine Environment (EDMON)

Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (strongly encouraged): June 23, 2021

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: September 22, 2021

Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: September 29, 2021

Award Amount: $150,000-$1M per year for 3-5 years

The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) is interested in receiving proposals for the Minerva Research Initiative, a university-led defense social science program seeking fundamental understanding of the social and cultural forces shaping U.S. strategic interests globally. OSD is particularly interested in projects that align with and support the National Defense Strategy. The Minerva Research Initiative emphasizes questions of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy. It seeks to increase the Department’s intellectual capital in the social sciences and improve its ability to address future challenges and build bridges between the Department and the social science community. Minerva brings together universities and other research institutions around the world and supports multidisciplinary and cross-institutional projects addressing specific interest areas determined by the Department of Defense. Proposals will be considered both for single-investigator awards as well as larger teams.

The 2021 Minerva Research Initiative competition is for research related to nine topics:

• Topic 1: Social Implications of Environmental Change
• Topic 2: Resource Competition, Social Cohesion, and Strategic Climate Resilience
• Topic 3: Security Risks in Ungoverned, Semi-Governed, and Differently-Governed Spaces
• Topic 4: Analysis of Foreign Influence Operations in Cross-Cultural Perspective
• Topic 5: Community Studies on Online and Offline Influence
• Topic 6: Computational Social Science Research on Difficult-to-Access Environments
• Topic 7: Social and Cultural Implications of Artificial Intelligence
• Topic 8: Humans and Outer Space
• Topic 9: Management and Information in the Defense Environment

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), with funding provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, seeks proposals for its new program for Collaborative Digital Editions in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American History. With an overarching goal to broaden participation in the production and publication of historical and scholarly digital editions, the Start-Up grants program is designed to:

• Provide opportunities that augment the preparation and training of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) new to the work of historical documentary editing, especially those currently working in history or related area and ethnic studies departments.
• Encourage and support the innovative and collaborative re-thinking of the historical and scholarly digital edition itself—how it is conceived, whose voices it centers, and for what purposes.
• Encourage and support the early planning and development of significant, innovative, and well-conceived digital edition projects rooted in African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American history and ethnic studies.
• Stimulate meaningful, mutually beneficial, and respectful collaborations that help to bridge longstanding institutional inequalities by promoting resource sharing and capacity building at all levels, and that build into their plans a variety of means for achieving meaningful community and user input and engagement.

Grants are awarded to collaborative teams consisting of at least two scholar-editors, as well as one or more archivists, digital scholars, data curators, and/or other support and technical staff, as appropriate to fulfill the planning goals and early-implementation needs of the proposed edition. NHPRC strongly encourages applications from collaborative teams that include BIPOC faculty and staff in key positions, and that include editorial, archival, and technical staff at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges, and/or other Indigenous and Native American tribal scholars and community members, and members of the Asian American community. NHPRC also encourages projects to seek out community members as well as undergraduate and graduate students to contribute to (and benefit from) participation in all phases of the project.

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: July 21, 2021
Sponsor Deadline: July 28, 2021
Award Amount: up to $1M over up to 4 years

The Disrupting Operations of Illicit Supply Networks (D-ISN) Solicitation supports research projects that take a systems approach to advance fundamental understanding of how networks that traffic in illicit or illicitly-produced goods and services operate, leading to technological breakthroughs that bolster our ability to disable these networks. Major goals of NSF’s D-ISN Solicitation include:

• Improve understanding of the operations of illicit supply networks and strengthen the ability to detect, disrupt, and dismantle them. 
• Support research on the illicit supply networks that fuel the national opioid epidemic 
• Enhance research communities that effectively integrate operational, computational, social, cultural and economic expertise to provide methods and strategies to combat this complex and elusive global security challenge.
• Catalyze game-changing technological innovations that can improve discovery and traceability of illicitly sourced product inputs.
• Provide research outcomes that inform U.S. national security, law enforcement and economic development needs and policies.

FAS/SEAS/OSP Deadline: July 27, 2021
Sponsor Deadline: August 3, 2021
Award Amount: $600,000 - $1M over up to 3 years

NSF and Amazon are partnering to jointly support computational research focused on fairness in AI, with the goal of contributing to trustworthy AI systems that are readily accepted and deployed to tackle grand challenges facing society. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to transparency, explainability, accountability, inclusivity, potential adverse biases (including social biases) and effects, mitigation strategies, algorithmic advances, fairness objectives, validation of fairness, participatory design, and advances in broad accessibility and utility. Funded projects will enable broadened acceptance of AI systems, helping the U.S. to further capitalize on the potential of AI technologies. Although Amazon provides partial funding for this program, it will not play a role in the selection of proposals for award.

Advancing AI is a highly interdisciplinary endeavor drawing on fields such as computer science, information science, engineering, statistics, mathematics, cognitive science, psychology, sociology, decision science, and economics. Considerations of practice, often derived from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, can inform new directions for computational science to better realize the benefits of algorithmic and data fairness. As such, NSF and Amazon expect these varied perspectives to be critical for the study of fairness in AI. NSF's ability to bring together multiple scientific disciplines uniquely positions the agency in this collaboration, while building AI that is fair and unbiased is an important aspect of Amazon's AI initiatives. This program supports the conduct of fundamental computer science research into theories, techniques, and methodologies that go well beyond today's capabilities and are motivated by challenges and requirements in real systems.

• U.S. Global Development Lab: Development Innovation Ventures - Rolling
• See all USAID Opportunities