Limited and External Funding Opportunities

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• Email LSO@vanderbilt.edu if you are interested in an opportunity not listed below or have questions regarding the LSO submission process.
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Have you been awarded a Limited Submission recognition?

Please let us know at LSO@vanderbilt.edu

Internal review process required to choose institutional nominees

Limited Submission Eligibility Guidelines

The following tags serve as a guide for submission instructions.

 Vanderbilt (VU + VUMC):  

• VU and VUMC submit collaboratively to this LSO. ALL investigators should follow the guidelines posted on this site.

S-

 VUMC :

• VU and VUMC submit separately to this LSO. VUMC investigators should follow the guidelines posted on this site. VU investigators should apply through InfoReady and address any questions to VU-LSO@vanderbilt.edu.

FEATURED OPPORTUNITY

• High-profile or prestigious awards of particular interest to Vanderbilt investigators

• Click on "View Full Internal Call" at end of each LSO description to access PDF with internal submission instructions 

Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering

Applications due January 26, 2025

Vanderbilt (VU + VUMC): This is a joint competition for VU and VUMC investigators. All investigators should follow these instructions.

Vanderbilt (VU and VUMC, collaboratively) may nominate 2 early-career faculty members for the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering Program. In 1988, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation established the Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering to allow the nation's most promising early career professors to pursue their science and engineering research with few funding restrictions and limited paperwork requirements. This program invests in future leaders who have the freedom to take risks, explore new frontiers in their fields of study, and follow uncharted paths that may lead to groundbreaking discoveries. Packard Fellows are inquisitive, passionate scientists and engineers who take a creative approach to their research, dare to think big, and follow new ideas wherever they lead.

Candidates must be faculty members who are eligible to serve as principal investigators engaged in research in the natural and physical sciences or engineering and must be within the first three years of their faculty careers (i.e., initial faculty appointments began no earlier than May 31, 2022, and no later than May 31, 2025).

2025 Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation Grants

Applications due January 28, 2025

Vanderbilt (VU + VUMC): This is a joint competition for VU and VUMC investigators. All investigators should follow these instructions. 

Vanderbilt (VU & VUMC combined) may submit up to 3 Letters of Intent, 1 per available award type, to the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation Grants Program. Founded in 1982, the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) has invested more than $46 million in pediatric cancer research and contributed to groundbreaking advances in treatment. 

The foundation is unique in their approach to funding childhood cancer research. The foundation’s focus on providing emerging research and translational grants allows researchers to prove their ideas, then reach for even larger grants. This is critical because federal funding is not available to researchers until they can demonstrate preliminary data to prove something should advance. Without this essential early-stage money, some great ideas could be lost forever. PCRF harvests these learnings and helps fast track their progress through the scientific cycle.

NSF ADVANCE: Organizational Change for Gender Equity in STEM Academic Professions

Applications due January 30, 2025

Vanderbilt (VU + VUMC): This is a joint competition for VU and VUMC investigators. All investigators should follow these instructions

The NSF ADVANCE program contributes to the National Science Foundation's goal of a more diverse and capable science and engineering workforce. In this solicitation, the NSF ADVANCE program seeks to build on prior NSF ADVANCE work and other research and literature concerning gender, racial, and ethnic equity. The NSF ADVANCE program goal is to broaden the implementation of evidence-based systemic change strategies that promote equity for STEM² faculty in academic workplaces and the academic profession. The NSF ADVANCE program provides grants to enhance the systemic factors that support equity and inclusion and to mitigate the systemic factors that create inequities in the academic profession and workplaces. Systemic (or organizational) inequities may exist in areas such as policy and practice as well as in organizational culture and climate. For example, practices in academic departments that result in the inequitable allocation of service or teaching assignments may impede research productivity, delay advancement, and create a culture of differential treatment and rewards. Similarly, policies and procedures that do not mitigate implicit bias in hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions could lead to women and racial and ethnic minorities being evaluated less favorably, perpetuating historical under-participation in STEM academic careers and contributing to an academic climate that is not inclusive.

All NSF ADVANCE proposals are expected to use intersectional approaches in the design of systemic change strategies in recognition that gender, race and ethnicity do not exist in isolation from each other and from other categories of social identity. The solicitation includes four funding tracks: Institutional Transformation (IT), Adaptation, Partnership, and Catalyst, in support of the NSF ADVANCE program goal to broaden the implementation of systemic strategies that promote equity for STEM faculty in academic workplaces and the academic profession.

2026 Breast Cancer Alliance Grants

Applications due February 12, 2025

VUMC:  These instructions are for VUMC investigators. VU investigators should apply through InfoReady and address any questions to VU-LSO@vanderbilt.edu.

VUMC may submit up to two letters of intent for the 2026 Breast Cancer Alliance Exceptional Project or Young Investigator Grants. The mission of the Breast Cancer Alliance is to improve survival rates and quality of life for those impacted by breast cancer through better prevention, early detection, treatment and cure. 

Exceptional Project Grant (XP)

This one-year grant for a total of $100,000 recognizes creative, unique and innovative research directly related to the field of breast cancer (see eligibility.) Indirect costs, which are included in the $100,000 award, must be limited to 8% of total direct costs.

Young Investigator Grants (YIG)

To encourage a commitment to breast cancer research, Breast Cancer Alliance invites clinical doctors and research scientists who are in the early stages of their careers, including post docs, whose current proposal is focused on breast cancer, to apply for funding for the Young Investigator Grant. This two-year, $125,000 grant is intended to help advance the careers of young researchers in breast cancer who do not yet have their own major grant support. Indirect costs, which are included in the $125,000 award, must be limited to 8% of total direct costs.

NIH Collaborative Program Grant for Multidisciplinary Teams (RM1- Clinical Trial Optional)

Applications due February 13, 2025

 VUMC:  These instructions are for VUMC investigators. VU investigators should apply through InfoReady and address any questions to VU-LSO@vanderbilt.edu.

VUMC may submit two proposals to the May 2025 cycle of the NIH Collaborative Program Grant for Multidisciplinary Teams (RM1). 

This program is designed to support highly integrated research teams of three to six PD/PIs to address ambitious and challenging research questions that are important for the mission of National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS) and are beyond the scope of an individual or a few investigators. Collaborative program teams are expected to accomplish goals that require considerable synergy and managed team interactions. Project goals should not be achievable with a collection of individual efforts or projects. Teams are encouraged to consider far-reaching objectives that will produce major advances in their fields. While applications may request research program budgets of up to $1.5 million direct costs per year, it is anticipated that most awards will be between $700,000-$900,000 direct costs. Applications may request up to five years of support.

Features of successful applications include:

• Each PD/PI is committed to team science and willing to devote a major part of their research effort to the team project.

• Achieving the goal(s) requires a team approach.

• Each biological question posed requires a cohesive team with an integrated approach.

• A team management structure is developed for achieving program goals.

Internal review process NOT required- Submit directly to Sponsor​

The VUMC Corporate & Foundation Relations team provides hands-on proposal development assistance for non-federal awards. Contact cfr@vumc.org for more information.