Funding Opportunities

Session to share knowledge and experiences with research and education funding in the current climate.

Introduction

• What we have heard about funding at the federal level
• Range of possible funding agencies, funding from private foundations, or industry/private companies
• What are participants' experiences with the current funding landscape over the last 1 1/2 years?

Funding Landscape

• Federal funding
  • What we have heard from NSF
    • NSF is taking the Strategic Plan 2026-30 seriously as they consider funding.
    • Aligning with the 4 topical priority areas is advantageous.
      • AI, quantum, biotech, advanced manufacturing
      • Workforce is a 5th, more embedded, priority across the others
        • Capacity building and industry partnerships can be part of workforce
    • Broader Impacts are still part of the review criteria. See 7 areas from 2010 - NSF says areas 1-6 are still important and area 7 should not be pursued.
      • ARIS toolkit is a relevant Broader Impacts resource and is being updated
    • Each directorate, and the academy overall, has EPSCoR target quotas to meet. Proposals need to include EPSCoR locations as lead institutions or PIs on a collaborative proposal. Senior personnel or other partnerships don't 'count' as EPSCoR.
    • Other cross-cutting programs may also be relevant if there is an authentic connection
  • Federal funding outside NSF
    • USGS EDMAP - FY26_EDMAP_NOFO_-_FINAL.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 703kB Jul31 26)
    • USGS Earth MRI
    • Dept. of Energy - Critical Minerals Innovation Hub
    • NASA - NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRE)
    • National Labs -- mostly write short proposals to work with National Lab research groups and for instrument time (e.g., Argonne National Labs)
• Other external funding
  • ACS Petroleum Research Fund
  • State Surveys
  • Industry partnerships
  • Private foundations:
    • Pivot-RP - Information on current grant opportunities with foundations, commonly accessed through institutional logins (coordinate with Grants Offices/Offices of Sponsored Research)
    • Sloan Foundation Research Fellowships
    • Keck Research Program
    • Moody Foundation
    • Sherman-Fairchild Foundation
    • Moore Foundation
    • Simons Foundation
  • Non-profit organizations such as the Earth Resources Innovation Institute (ERI)
• Shifting priorities and program changes

Group Discussion

Participants' Experiences

• Where are people finding funding outside of NSF?
• For those who have sat on review panels recently, what connections or trends are reviewers rewarding right now?
• How are you framing fundamental structural geology and tectonics research questions to align with national priorities on AI, critical minerals, etc.?
• What are people doing for broader impacts?
  • ARIS toolkit

Research Continuity without External Funding

• What are approaches for research continuity without external funding?
  • Open-access datasets
  • Integrating research questions into field courses or Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs)
  • Local/regional project with minimal overhead
  • Equipment/instrumentation sharing networks
  • Internal grants and alumni-sponsored departmental funds