Office of Campus Research Development
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Proposal Development Resources
For Your Considerations
Scientific Review
Pink Team Review
Red Team Review
Multi-Disciplinary and Multi-Institutional Proposals
University-wide Educational Programs for Proposals
Young Investigator Funding
Institutionally-Limited Nominations
To help with grant writing, OCRD has developed a number of grant writing toolkits focusing on either a specific federal funding agency or a specific funding program within a federal funding agency. These toolkits include templates and guidance documents to help write proposals. You can access any of the toolkits with your Duke NetID.
Standard Grant Programs
NSF Grants for Faculty focuses on standard research and educational NSF grants.
NSF Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) to support early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. This toolkit is updated every spring.
Deadlines: Fourth Monday in July
NIH R Grants to help develop R01s, R21s, R03s.
Deadlines: See NIH Standard Due Dates
NIH K Awards to help develop mentored NIH career development awards.
Special Grant Programs
NSF Accelerating Research through International Network-to-Network Collaborations (AccelNet) supports strategic linkages between U.S. and international research networks to identify knowledge gaps and develop research roadmaps that will stimulate and foster future research advances in science, engineering, and STEM education.
Deadline: second Monday in October
NSF Addressing Systems Challenges through Engineering Teams (ASCENT) emphasizes new collaboration modalities among the various ECCS supported sub-disciplines and encourages robust collaborations among the devices, circuits, algorithms, systems, and networks research communities to develop innovative projects..
Deadline: March 2, 2022 (required preliminary proposal) and May 31, 2022 (full proposal, by invitation only)
NSF Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) is a dedicated program supporting the development of a diverse and well-prepared engineering workforce through enhancing the diversity and inclusion of all underrepresented populations in engineering.
Deadline: Open.
NSF Conference supports conferences in special areas of science and engineering that bring experts together to discuss recent research or education findings or to expose other researchers or students to new research and education techniques.
Deadline: Open (a conference proposal should generally be submitted at least a year in advance of the scheduled date).
NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE): Core Programs to help faculty with SMALL, MEDIUM, or LARGE projects responding to any of the CISE programs.
Deadline: December 1, 2021 - December 22, 2021 (MEDIUM projects and OAC CORE projects)
NSF DMS-NIGMS to support fundamental research in mathematics and statistics necessary to answer questions in the biological and biomedical sciences and to promote research at the interface between mathematical and life sciences.
Deadline: September 1-September 18 2020; September 1-18 annually thereafter
NSF EHR Core Research (ECR CORE) for fundamental research that contributes to the general, explanatory knowledge that underlies STEM education in one or more of three broadly conceived Research Areas: Research on STEM Learning and Learning Environments, Research on Broadening Participation in STEM fields, and Research on STEM Workforce Development.
Deadline: first Thursday in October
NSF Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) to use fundamental research to produce knowledge about what constitutes or promotes responsible or irresponsible conduct of research and why, as well as how to best instill this knowledge into researchers, practitioners, and educators at all career stages.
Deadline: February 17, 2022; January 23, 2023; January 21 annually thereafter
NSF Findable Accessible Interoperable Reusable Open Science Research Coordination Networks (FAIROS RCN) to create 3-year RCNs to foster catalytic improvements in science and engineering communities focusing on the FAIR (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse) guiding principles and Open Science (OS) best practices. FAIROS RCN proposals must select one of two tracks to focus on, either: 1) Disciplinary Improvements to target disciplines in 1 (ideal) and no more than 2 science Directorates, or 2) Cross-Cutting Improvements that apply to many science and engineering disciplines across Directorates.
Deadline: April 12, 2022
NSF Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier: Core Research (FW-HTF) to support multi-disciplinary research to sustain economic competitiveness, to promote worker well-being, lifelong and pervasive learning, and quality of life, and to illuminate the emerging social and economic context and drivers of innovations that are shaping the future of jobs and work.
Deadline: March 2, 2022
NSF Growing Convergence Research (GCR) targeting multi-disciplinary team research that crosses directorate or division boundaries and is currently not supported by NSF programs, initiatives, and research-focused Big Ideas.
Deadline: February 7, 2022; thereafter, first Monday in February.
NSF Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) invites visionary, ambitious, interdisciplinary, use-inspired research proposals that address scientific challenges related to climate change and/or clean energy.
Deadline: February 8, 2022 (required LOI); March 25, 2022 (full proposal)
NSF Research Coordination Networks (RCN) to help develop proposals that focus on fostering new research collaborations and networks as opposed to supporting primary research.
NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) to help develop REU Site proposals.
Deadline: fourth Wednesday in August.
NSF Racial Equity in Stem Education (EHR Racial Equity) to support bold, ground-breaking, and potentially transformative projects addressing systemic racism in STEM through research (both fundamental and applied) and practice.
Deadline: March 22, 2022; thereafter, second Tuesday in October and fourth Tuesday in March
NSF Science of Science: Discovery, Communication, and Impact (SoS: DCI) to to increase the public value of scientific activity by supporting basic research in three fundamental areas: 1) How to increase the rate of socially beneficial discovery, 2) How to improve science communication outcomes, and 3) How to expand the societal benefits of scientific activity. Note that this opportunity is offered in partnership between NSF and the William T. Grant Foundation. Faculty can apply on either the NSF side (see NSF target dates below) or the WT Grant Foundation side. See toolkit for details.
Target Dates: February 10, 2022; September 9, 2022; February 10 and September 9 annually thereafter.
NSF Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC) to accelerate the creation of the scientific and engineering foundations that will enable smart and connected communities to bring about new levels of economic opportunity and growth, safety and security, health and wellness, accessibility and inclusivity, and overall quality of life.
Deadline: Proposals accepted anytime until April 1, 2024
NSF Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN) to support the use of convergent approaches that explore emergent network properties of living systems across various levels of organizational scale and, ultimately, to contribute to understanding the rules of life through new theories and reliable predictions about the impact of specific environmental changes on behaviors of complex living systems, or engineerable interventions and technologies based on a rule of life to address associated outcomes for societal benefit.
FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS AND/OR POSTDOCS
NIH K99 to help postdocs develop the K99/R00 application.
NSF Grants for Graduate Students includes separate toolkits for:
GRFP
DDRIG
NIH F Grants to help PhD students and postdocs develop:
F30 and F31 applications
F32 applications