Highlights From This Newsletter:

• New Office of Research Website
• Date Change: 2026 Postdoctoral Scholar Appreciation Dinner
• Upcoming Grant Development Cohort and Research Events
• Internal Funding Opportunities
• National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF) Updates

New Office of Research Website

The Office of Research has launched a new site combining all Office of Research operations. Please update any bookmarked pages and contact the office if you cannot find the information you need.

Date Change: 2026 Postdoctoral Scholar Appreciation Dinner

The 2026 Postdoctoral Scholar Appreciation Dinner has been rescheduled for Friday, Sept. 25. This event is for postdoctoral scholars, their families and faculty mentors and will celebrate the important contributions postdoctoral scholars make to SU’s research and creative activities during National Postdoctoral Scholar Appreciation Week.

Grant Development Cohort

2026-27 NIH R-Series Applicant Cohort
Applications are currently being accepted for the NIH R-Series Applicant Cohort, hosted by the Office of Research Development (ORD). This grant development and writing series is designed for faculty who have not yet applied for an NIH R-series grant, or who have applied and have had their applications triaged without scoring. Members of the cohort will receive:

• access to The Bouvier Grant Group’s training materials
• mentoring from an internal faculty member with successful NIH grant experience
• regular cohort meetings facilitated by ORD staff to assist in writing and reviewing draft grant applications.

Apply for the cohort by Friday, Sept. 11.

Upcoming Research Events

Office of Research Social
Friday, Sept. 11 | 4-5:30 p.m. | first floor lobby, Lyman Hall

Colleagues working on research and creative activities are invited to take a break and enjoy light hors d’oeuvres and a selection of beer, wine and soft drinks.

Core Facilities Open House
Friday, Sept. 11 | 9-11 a.m. | 106 Life Sciences Complex

In this open house, attendees are invited learn about the instruments, machines and laboratories available, meet the cores’ technical directors and schedule time for follow-up consultations or trainings on the instruments.

Internal Funding Opportunities

NEW DEADLINE! Faculty Creative Activities and Research (FCAR) Grant Program
This program provides up to $5,000 for one-year projects to support new research and creative endeavors in the humanities, arts, social sciences and related fields and to increase high-quality scholarly output by faculty.
Deadline: Thursday, Oct. 15

NEW DEADLINE! Writing and Publishing (WRAP) Funding
This internal grant opportunity is designed to support faculty in “wrapping up” their single-authored or co-authored book projects and will help offset costs associated with the final stages of publication/production, when a book will soon appear in print or on digital platforms.
Deadline: Thursday, Oct. 15

Faculty Bridge Funding Program
This program allows a minimal level of activity while a proven principal investigator awaits expected federal funding, e.g., to prevent loss of key postdoctoral researchers, research faculty/staff or senior graduate students or loss of research materials in the interim period.
Deadline: Rolling 

Supporting Preliminary and Applied Research in Core Facilities (SPARC)
This program provides limited financial assistance to faculty investigators who wish to utilize University core facility instruments or services but do not currently have access to startup funds, discretionary accounts or active external grants to fund usage costs. This program is designed to reduce barriers to instrument access and to enable faculty to generate the preliminary data necessary to compete for external funding.
Deadline: Rolling

Team Building for Large, Collaborative Grants
These awards, intended for researchers with a track record of securing sponsored funding, aim to facilitate the development of collaborative research teams and support planning activities that enable the submission of a competitive research proposal to an external sponsor.
Deadline: Rolling

NIH and NSF Updates

NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan (DMSP) Requirement
NIH now requires all active awards to transition and align with the updated DMSP format. A revised DMSP must be submitted at the next Research Performance Progress Report (RPPR) for proposals submitted prior to May 25, 2026, that have been awarded, or during the Just-in-Time (JIT) process for proposals submitted prior to May 25, 2026, that have not yet been awarded. The updated DMSP is required for all new proposal submissions. The Office of Research has guidelines available on our website.

NSF August 2026 Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for Foundational Research
NSF has released 12 new NOFOs to provide over $1.5 billion for foundational research to drive breakthroughs across the scientific enterprise. The new opportunities support a mix of long-horizon awards for ambitious, transformative research and rapid short-term grants to quickly test promising ideas to advance NSF’s core mission.

Limited Submission Opportunities

The following opportunities are active internal competitions. Competitions marked “Letter of Intent” require a short form only; please apply as soon as you know you are interested rather than waiting for the deadline.

NEW! EPA Innovative Water Infrastructure Workforce Development Grant Program – Letter of Intent
Internal Letter of Intent Due Date: Monday, Aug. 31
Number of Internal Nominees: 1
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to support expanding career opportunities in the drinking water and wastewater utility sector and elevating public awareness about jobs in the water workforce.

NEW! 2027 Brain Research Foundation Seed Grant Program
Internal Proposal Due Date: Thursday, Sept. 10
Number of Internal Nominees: 1
The purpose of this program is to provide start-up monies for new and innovative research projects, especially those of junior faculty, in the field of neuroscience that will likely lead to extramural funding from the NIH or other outside funding sources.

NEW! 2027 Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program
Internal Proposal Due Date: Thursday, Sept. 24
Number of Internal Nominees: 2
The Foundation is seeking proposals that address the relationship between populism and polarization, how other democracies have resisted or reversed polarization and the conditions that determine whether polarization dissipates or accelerates into systemic violence. Syracuse University can nominate one untenured and one tenured scholar.

NEW! FY2028 Defense Programmatic Increase Requests
Internal Proposal Due Date: Thursday, Oct. 15
Number of Internal Nominees: Unlimited
SU is soliciting proposals for programmatic increase requests for Department of Defense (DoD) Congressional funding. Interested faculty and staff are strongly encouraged to socialize concepts with Laura Kolton, executive director of federal relations, prior to submitting a request.

W. M. Keck Foundation Research Program – June 2027 Grant Cycle
Internal Proposal Due Date: Wednesday, Sept. 16 (extended)
Number of Internal Nominees: 3
This program seeks to benefit humanity by supporting basic science research projects that are distinctive and novel in their approach, question the prevailing paradigm or have the potential to break open new territory in their field.

November 2026 NSF Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program
Internal Proposal Due Date: Thursday, Sept. 24 (extended)
Number of Internal Nominees: 4
This program serves to increase access to multi-user scientific and engineering instrumentation for research and research training in our nation’s institutions of higher education and not-for-profit scientific/engineering research organizations. We strongly encourage faculty to talk to their NSF program officer first to determine if the NSF Division will be receptive to an instrument request.
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Internal deadlines for these opportunities have passed, but “slots” remain. Please email LimitedSubmissions@syr.edu if you are interested in applying to the sponsor.

2027 Searle Scholars Program

2026 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director’s Early Independence Awards

2026 NIH Seed Instrumentation Support (SIS) Program

2026-2027 Greenwall Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics

For more information about limited submissions and to view all opportunities, visit the Office of Research webpage.

External Funding Opportunities

Sony Research Award Program
This program provides funding for cutting-edge academic research and helps build a collaborative relationship between faculty and Sony researchers. Applications are being accepted for both the Faculty Innovation Award and the Focused Research Award.
Deadline: Tuesday, Sept. 15

American Council of Learned Societies Digital Justice Development Grants
This program seeks to address the inequities in the distribution of access to tools and support for digital work among scholars across various fields, those working with under-utilized or understudied source materials and those in institutions with less support for digital projects.
Deadline: Tuesday, Nov. 3

Humanities and Arts Opportunities for Fall 2026
A list of upcoming external funding opportunities, campus-wide opportunities (.docx) and key dates and deadlines (.docx) for humanities and creative arts faculty are available on the Humanities Center website.